Intertwined Destinies I
by The Loyal Baphodevi
Summary: When an earth quake appears in their town, Daniel and Samantha some how find themselves in Traverse town. Now they just want to find a way back home, and they think traveling with the Keyblade master is the only way.
1. Chapter 1: This one time at band camp

Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts, Disney, Final Fantasy or anything related to Square Enix or pretty much anything at all except for the few characters that I have made up ie. Dan and Sam. This will be the only disclaimer for the whole story and I'm not even sure why I'm making a disclaimer since it is kind of obvious I don't own anything.

Sam's P.O.V.

It is blistering hot out. Five freshmen have already fainted and twenty students in all have puked. That's pretty sad when its only the second day of band camp.

The instrument groups are being separated to play their own parts of music. The low brass section is "walking with purpose" towards their designated area while the other sections are running, jogging or any assortment of the two.

The clarinets are in their own smaller friend groups talking about gossip as their adviser is talking to the band director.

"So Sam, what are you doing after this?" Sabrina asked. "You can come with me and K.C. and go shopping."

"No, I'm going on a date with George." I say.

"Come on, you go on a date with him every day."

"Just because your boyfriend wants to hang out with you only twice a week doesn't mean mine does." I say on impulse. Why does she have to argue about this everyday?

Sabrina opens her mouth to argue about that, but Mr. T, the main band director blows his whistle to call every one back. Sabrina gives me an angry look and then storms off.

"Okay, everyone, we've finally got the drill charts." Mr. T waves them in his hand and then distributes them to me and the other senior instrumentalists to hand out. "They think there is no way, but we'll show them we can play Led Zeppelin for marching, just like how we played The Who last year." No one really knows who 'they' are, but it still brings a cheer. "Okay okay, enough cheering. Every one to your first spots." We all quickly find our spots while helping the freshmen in the progress.

Mr. T is about to speak when a huge gust of wind comes over us. It feels so good over my sweaty skin. Then we all noticed the big black clouds coming over us. I can hear the low brass rejoicing that their rain dance might finally have worked. No one noticed that the clouds ware looking pretty ominous to me, though, or maybe I'm just paranoid.

Suddenly we all can hear a terrible screeching as a blast of wind breaks off the speakers form the top of the band pavilion that is in front of the practice fields we are using.

Mr. T has to jump out of the way before the speakers crash to the ground right where he was standing. I've never seen him move so fast!

Several people go over to make sure he is okay.

We could all feel the warmth of the sun then. The cloud just leaves as quickly as it had appeared. "Well that was melodramatic." I say to myself.

"Well, now that that's over with. "Says Mr. T. He's still a little startled by almost getting hit by the speakers. "Everybody get back to your spots." Everyone groans as they head back to their spots.

A huge rumble could be heard from far off. Some of the low brass start to ask every body if some one was hungry. "Was that the thunder from those clouds?" I ask K.C. She gives me a shrug.

Then… the earth shook. And if the wind scared some of us, then you have no idea how scared we are if we encounter our first earth quake.

This isn't just some earth quake, either. It must be at least a category 5000! A chasm opens up in the parking lot, taking all of our cars with it and even more cracks appear through most of the ground.

Everyone is running around this time. Event he adults are. All that I can think of is to get out of here and that's what I do. I run off to the bike path that's across the soccer field from us. I need to make sure Mom and Dad are okay at home.

Dan's P.O.V.

"What the hell is going on?" No one bothers answering me as they all run in different directions. The low brass section I was with disperses to every direction around me.

"Dan, stay here. Nothing can fall on us in an open plain." My friend, Ben, says. I can only agree with him. Well, no one here really does know what to do during an earthquake. We've never had one before.

But wait, where is my sister? "Sam! Sam! Where are you?" I look around but can't see her.

"Is that her over there?" I look to see where Ben's pointing. A blonde girl is racing across the soccer field. I quickly run after her. "Dan, wait! What did I just say?"

I easily catch up to her." Hey, wait!" She turns around and I find out I was running after the wrong person. "Amber?"

"Dan, what are you doing?" Amber says. She looks shocked, thinking I came after her, which I technically did.

"I thought you were Sam. Have you seen her?"

"Oh," She says disappointingly. "I saw her run across that bridge." I quickly run off to the bike trail bridge leaving Amber behind. "Could have at least thanked me."

Once over the bridge, I see people running through the Frisbee golf course. I also see Sam running away from atop the hill following the bike path.

By the time I get to the top of the hill she was already going across another bridge at the bottom. "Damn it, slow down." I pant. "I may be faster, but you have way more endurance. SAM!" She finally stops after hearing me giving me enough time to catch up.

"Sam, what are you-" A loud cracking noise interrupts me.

"Look out!" She pushes me out of the way as a tree falls down on the path.

"S-sam!" I'm at a total loss of words.

"Dan, we need to get home." She grabs my hand and takes off with me having to keep up.

We run by the grade school, the softball diamonds, follow Main Street as a whole bunch of cars speed by, and go down to the end of our street.

Our house is the last one on our street. The street just stops right in front of a corn field. Once we reach the door, Sam quickly unlocks it with her key. But wait, why was the door locked? The door opens and we see that the house is in ruins.

The front of the house is the only wall standing. All the others were knocked down when the deep gaping crack appeared through the house. "You don't think-" Sam couldn't finish.

"No." A thought came in my head. "The door was locked, so they must have left before this happened. Come on, let's get out of here." I pull her out of the destroyed home.

We start to head up the street when, with another shake, it starts to collapse towards us!

"Run!" I yell, this time dragging her into the corn field. The rough corn husks are making my legs, arms, and head extremely itchy, but I keep running. I can hear the ground behind us collapsing.

"Whoa." I slide my feet to a stop, although I'm almost pushed by Sam anyways. In front of us is another chasm.

"What now?" Sam asks.

"We'll have to jump."

"Are you crazy! We'll never make it!"

"Either way, we'll fall." And with that, I tense up ready to jump, and thankfully Sam follows suite.

"Jump!" I yell, and we jump across. It looks like we're going to make it. One of my legs lands on top, but Sam completely misses and pulls me down. I quickly grab the cliff with a hand as I keep Sam from falling with my other. Both of our weight is exhausting my arm, though.

"Dan, you can't hold on forever." Sam is on the verge of tears.

"No, just shut up."

"But you could climb up without-"

"No! Don't be stupid!" I'm not going to let her fall, especially since it is mostly my fault.

"Well… if you won't let go." She starts wriggling her hand trying to break free.

"Sam, please. Don't do this." My arm feels like it's going to snap off if she doesn't though.

"Make sure Mom and Dad are okay." She says, and then falls.

"Sam!" Right when she lets go, the part of the cliff my hand is on crumbles under my grip, and I fall after her.


	2. Chapter 2: Meeting new and old faces

Disclaimer: I own Dan and Sam, nothing else.

Chapter 2: meeting new and old faces

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Dan's P.O.V.

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Pain, that's all I can feel. We must have finally hit the bottom of the bottomless pit. But wait… I should be dead then.

I open my eyes expecting to only see darkness. Well there is darkness, but there is also light. It looks like I'm in an alleyway. To the left of me is a wooden fence blocking off passage and to the right is the way out.

Oh wow, has Sam been leaning on me this whole time? "Sam, wake up." I start to shake her awake.

"Mmm, one more hour." She mumbles.

"One more minute and you'll be using a garbage can as a pillow." I stand up, and her head hits the brick floor.

"Ow, what was that-" She looks around. "Where are we?"

"In an alleyway." I say as if it's normal to randomly be in one.

"Well no duh, but where is this alley?" She says impatiently.

"I don't know. I just woke up right before you."

"Well let's find out." She gets up, but instantly falls back on her butt. "Ow, what the hell?"

"Do you need me to hold you up?" I say mockingly.

"Shut up." She gets up and walks away. "Hey wait for me." I run after her.

"Wow." I explained. "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Sam." The whole place looks like a business district. There's an item shop (is that like groceries?) to the right of us with some sort of restaurant seating nearby. Behind us on the top of some stairs is an accessory shop (jewelry?). It has a huge, really bright neon sign above it. There is also some sort of mailbox underneath the stairs leading to the accessory shop.

"We never were in Kansas." Sam says, and then shrieks when she notices the accessory shop." O-M-G, we've got to go check out the jewelry." She runs up the stairs in front of the shop and enters through the door.

Can't she be more serious about this? We fall down a big hole, and suddenly appear here, and all she cares about is jewelry. I start going after her when a person walking around gets my attention. He is small, pink, and has a red nose and a red fuzzy thing attached to his head. "Is that a moogle?" I can't believe this. Moogles are supposed to be in a final fantasy game, not walking around some random town. I shake my head still not quite believing my eyes, and quickly run inside the shop.

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Sam's P.O.V.

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"Hmmph, some jewelry these are." I put the accessories back down. "They're all so ugly."

"WHAT! I will not tolerate little brats coming in my shop and calling my accessories ugly!" The owner yells at me. "Besides these are for protection, not for fashion."

"Sam what's going-" I look at Dan who just entered the store to see he's staring at the owner like he has just seen a ghost. "Cid?" Wait he knows this guy?

"Yuh know me do yuh? I'm not surprised. Everyone knows the famous Cid." Cid says arrogantly. I just stare dumbfounded at Dan, who looks pretty confused himself. "Who are you kids anyways? I've never seen you two before." Cid continues.

"Hey I'm not a kid. I'm eighteen, and the names Sam." I say. Dan mumbles his name too.

"Whatever, to me adults are twenty one and up."

"What, so I have to legally drink to be an adult?" I argue.

"Yeah, pretty much. You remind me of that kid that just left a few minutes ago. Said he wasn't a kid, and how his world was just destroyed and he is looking for his friends now."

"Wait, what do you mean by 'his world was destroyed'?" Dan asks, finally getting out of his shock.

Heartless attacked his world. Just like how they destroyed your world and mine."

"No, there was a huge earthquake, and we just… found ourselves here." I say. "What are heartless?"

"'What are heartless'?" Cid starts laughing. "Oh, you're to rich." He suddenly stops laughing and begins scratching his chin. "You say you just got here huh? Well I guess I'll be the first to welcome you to Traverse Town then."

Just then the door flies open and some kid (oh no I'm acting like Cid now!) with red spiky hair and wearing strange clothing runs in panting and sweating all over.

"Speak of the devil, there's that kid that I was talking about earlier. What's wrong kid, looks like you just ran away from some heartless."

"I did!" The kid pants. They just appeared out of nowhere!"

"Ya they're pretty bad all right. These two here just had their world destroyed by heartless too."

"We told you, there was an earthquake, not heartless. We're not even sure if it was destroyed or not." I say angrily. Cid just shakes his head like he's sad by this statement.

"Maybe the heartless caused the earthquake?" The kid says while still panting a little.

"Oh." I explain. I can't believe I forgot to introduce myself first. "Hi I'm Sam, and that's my brother Dan, what's your name?

"I'm Sora. Your name is Sam? Isn't that a boy's name?" remarks Sora.

"It's short for Samantha." Dan quickly explains before I can shout at Sora.

"Well, looks like you three are getting along fine." Cid says mockingly. Dan starts to argue that we just introduced each other, but Cid stops him. "Now get out of my shop before you break something!" He then pushes us right out of the door.

"How rude." I whine.

"Well now what?" Dan asks us.

"They'll come out of nowhere," Some random guy holding a huge sword walks towards us. "and they'll keep on coming at you as long as you continue to wield the keyblade." What's the keyblade?

"What's the keyblade?" Dan asks. I hate how he says what I think.

"He's talking about this." Sora extends his hand and with a flash of light, a strange sword that's shaped like a key appears in his hand.

"But why? The stranger continues. "Why would it choose a kid like you?" he puts his hand on his head as if thinking about the answer to his own question.

"Hey what's that supposed to mean?" Sora asks angrily.

"Never mind, now let's see that keyblade. The guy starts walking towards us.

"What? There's no way you're getting this!" Sora readies himself for an attack.

"All right, then have it your way." The guy smirks and raises his sword also ready to attack. Thankfully they jump over the wall to the bottom of the stairs so Dan and I won't get in the way.

It was a short duel too. After moving away, Sora gets in three attacks before being blocked. Then he gets hit by what looks to me like a fire ball, and then gets slashed twice before falling unconscious.

During that time, Dan and I had a short conversation. "Who is this guy?" I ask, though I don't expect an answer.

"That's Squall, well he calls himself Leon." Dan replies. His eyes are following the fight below us.

"How do you know that? How do you know Cid too?"

"They are characters in some video games I've played."

"So we're in a videogame!?" That's really shocking.

"No, either this is a huge coincidence; they came out of the video game, or something else that I can't think of." Then Sora gets knocked out. "Shit." Dan runs over to Sora.

"Dan what are you doing?!" I yell as he runs out.

He turns around and says "We can't just let him knock out Sora and get away with it." He then turns back around and starts running again.

"But we barely know him, and you don't know how to fight!" He keeps going though. "Damn it!"

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Dan's P.O.V.

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Why would Leon randomly attack a kid to steal his weapon? That's not right at all. I step between them, and Leon glowers at me. "Get out of my way, or do you expect to fight me with no weapon?" Shit, I thought I forgot something. Well, time to put being a blue belt in karate to good use.

I spread out my feet and get into horse stance, and raise my fists showing I'm still going to fight. I won't be able to black a sword attack, but maybe I can get around him as he swings his sword.

Leon sees that I am going to fight still, and charges. The first thing he does is jump up and swings his sword down at me. It makes a perfect time for me to experiment on my hypothesis. I roll out of the way as he slashes at the ground, and with the opening, I give a round house kick to his side. Then, putting my foot on the inside of his leg, I kick upwards, causing him to fall down on his back. I raise my foot for an axe kick, but I strike the ground because Leon rolls out of the way.

Leon, angry that I knocked him down, goes into a flurry of attacks. I can just barely try to avoid them as I jump backwards.

Leon notices that I'm dodging them all, so stops and looks at his sword. "Try to doge this!" His sword flashes blue, and then his sword is covered with a blue aura that makes it almost double in size.

I really need a weapon." I look around as if there would be one lying on the ground. Wait there is one on the ground. "The keyblade." I smack my forehead. "Why didn't I think of that earlier?"

I run back to Sora, who is actually pretty far away because of me moving in battle. Leon see's me running to Sora, and chases after me. As I'm about to reach the keyblade, I look back for a second and see Leon jumping extremely high and bringing his blade down at me. I quickly lunge for the keyblade, pick it up, and raise it up in self defense.

I brace myself thinking I'm about to get sliced up, but I don't get hit. I open my eyes, and too my surprise, see that the keyblade had hit Leon right in the chest. I watch as Leon staggers, trying to get to me, but he falls on his knees, and then he goes face first into the stone ground.

"Did I…. just win?" I stare at Leon, shocked by this, and after he didn't move, I remembered about Sora.

I quickly get up and look over at him, but he's still unconscious like he was before. Should I just stay here till he wakes up? Maybe they have potions or something like in the final fantasy games. But I don't have any money. I suddenly feel a great pain in my back. I grope around my back, and feel something embedded in it. I pull it out and examine it. "A shuriken? Great now a ninja is after me." I raise the keyblade up for defense and look around trying to find where the ninja could be.

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Sam's P.O.V.

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I can just stare with my mouth wide open at Dan as he looks over at Sora. I can't believe he took that guy out. Sure it was probably by accident, but still.

I'm about to run over to him when he shouts in pain. He reaches for his back and then looks at his hand. Is he bleeding?

Once he raises the keyblade and glances around, I understand that the fights not over. Suddenly a huge puff of smoke appears behind Dan, and he instantly falls unconscious.

When the smoke fades away, a girl is where it was, holding a huge sharp… thing. She makes sure Dan's unconscious, then walks over to Leon. She looks disappointed at him as she throws a bottle at him that cracks open leaving a bright aura around him.

"Need some help?" She extends her hand to Leon, who came to consciousness.

"I'm fine." He stands up and walks to Dan and Sora, and the girl follows.

The girl kneels down next to Dan. "Hey you found it. Nice going, Leon. So is he the one?" She points at Dan who is still holding the keyblade.

"I'm not sure. They both wielded it at some point of time." Leon holds his head again, thinking.

The girl shakes her head. "Guess we'll just have to bring both of them."

There was a girl with them at first."

"She'll probably follow us any way." I quickly lower my head behind the stone wall as she looks in my direction. Does she know I'm here? "Come n Squall, you can carry that guy." She picks up Sora as if he weighs nothing, and puts him on her back like she is giving him a piggyback ride.

"The name's Leon!" The girl ignored him, so he grabs Dan and puts him on his shoulder. Leon sighs. "It looks like things are worse then we thought. A lot worse."

I have to quietly run back into the alley where we started as Leon and the girl walk up the stairs and head to the right.

I watch as they walk through some big double doors that are behind the shop. Should I follow them? That's what the girl will expect…

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Sora's P.O.V.

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"Ugh." I open my eyes, but have to wait for them to adjust to the light. But when they do, the first thing I see is Kairi!

"You okay?" Kairi asks.

"I guess…" I say back.

"Those creatures that attacked you are after the keyblade. But it's your heart that they really want, because you wield the keyblade." How does she know this stuff?

"I'm so glad that you're okay, Kairi." I can't really think of what else to say.

"Kairi? Who are you talking about? I am the great ninja Yuffie." Kairi is gone, and a different girl is in her place. She examines me some more. "I think you might have overdone it, Squall."

"For the last time, it's Leon. Can't you get that one little thing stuck in your head?"

Ignoring this, I notice the keyblade standing against the wall next to Leon. "The Keyblade…"

"Yeah, we had to get it away from you to shake off those creatures." Yuffie explains. "It turns out that's how they were tracking you." "It was the only way to conceal your heart from them." Leon added. "But it won't work for long. Still, hard to believe that you of all people are the chosen one." He picks up the blade and examines it. Then with a flash of light, it disappears from his hand and appears in mine. Well, I suppose beggars can't be choosers.

"Why don't you start making sense? What's going on here?" I'm not quite sure what they are actually talking about.

"Well isn't it obvious?" I look over and am shocked to see Dan sitting right next to me.

"How'd you get here?" I ask.

"Well after you got your ass kicked by Leon, someone had to save you." He says it so arrogantly.

"You mean you won! But wait, how'd we get here then?"

"Well I WAS winning, but then the cavalry arrived." He looks over at Yuffie.

"Heh, it was a pleasure defeating you." She says. "But on to more important matters." She looks over at Leon, expecting him to begin another explanation.

"Well you know there are more worlds now right?" I nod my head as Dan shakes his. Leon gives a sigh. "Well there are. They used to not be connected. No one knew about them until now. When the heartless came, everything changed.

"What are these heartless anyways? I've never seen one before." Dan says.

"Never seen one? A likely story." Yuffie says.

"The heartless are those with out hearts." Leon continues.

"Well I sort of gathered that information myself thank you." Dan says, interrupting Leon again.

"Will you shut up already? Or maybe you want to be defeated by me again." Dan shows that he'll be fine when he hears that. "The darkness in people's hearts is what attracts them. And there is Darkness with in every heart. Hey have you heard of someone named Ansem?"

Dan and I both shake our heads at this. Leon sighs again. "He was studying the heartless. He recorded all of his findings in a very detailed report.

"Great can I read it?" Dan says excitedly.

"Its pages are scattered everywhere." Yuffie explains. Dan sighs at that.

"So why did you bring us here anyways?" I hate explanations, they are so confusing.

"It's because the heartless have great fear of the Keyblade. That's why they'll keep coming after you no matter what." Leon says.

"Well I didn't ask for this."

"The keyblade chooses its master, and it chose you." Yuffie says. I'm not sure why she always talks so cheerfully. "So tough luck." Leon adds.

"But why am I here then?" Dan asks. That's a good question actually.

"It's because you were able to wield the keyblade to fight me." Leon says.

"Wait you what?" That would explain how he could actually fight Leon, but still… I am the one who was chosen right?

"So what if I used it?" Dan asks, ignoring my outbreak.

"No one can use a keyblade except a keyblade master, unless he lets them borrow it." Leon says.

"Well I pretty much did borrow it, and Sora probably wouldn't have minded it." He looks at me for reassurance.

"Um, yeah, I guess." I say.

"Squ-Leon I think it's time." Yuffie says, trying to move the conversation on.

"Right, let's join Aerith." Leon turns towards me. "There are some people we think you should meet. Leon begins to open a door when a shriek could be heard. There's a shattering of glass, and Sam and a heartless fall on the floor, still fighting each other.

"Sam!" Dan runs over and kicks the heartless off of her and straight out the shattered window.

"Yuffie take her and run!" Leon orders and Yuffie quickly obliges, taking Sam with her. "Sora it's time to show off your moves." Leon looks at me, and I nod back. "Dan, use this." Leon gets a sword out of nowhere, and hands it to Dan.

"Where'd you shove this out of?" Dan says, while almost dropping the sword because of its weight.

"Just move it!" He pushes me and Dan out a back door and onto a balcony.

"Wait! You want us to jump? Won't that break our legs?!" Dan looks down at the distance.

"What, are you afraid of heights?" I smile at him and jump off, landing perfectly with my feet on the ground.

I look up trying to see Dan, but he's already down here with me, "Nah, I just don't want a broken leg."

A lot of heartless with blue armor appear around us. I'm about to attack them when Leon stops me. "Don't bother with the small fry. Find the leader." He runs down the street avoiding the heartless.

"Dan, come on" I wave him on towards the way Leon didn't take. We have to dodge all the heartless while running across. And we do get hit a couple times, but I have to say that Dan's pretty good at that. When I tell him that, he says. "Please, this is much easier than dodging students in my school's hallways."

After traversing the town for a while, we end up in an open area with wall surrounding it and pathways at the corners of the square shaped middle.

As we run across, we hear a big bang. "Look out!" Dan shouts and points at the sky.

I look up and see two figures coming down towards me. I try to run out of the way, but they collide on top of me, knocking me down.

"They key!" They both shout. Great, some more people that want my blade.

I shove them off of me and stand up. I look over to Dan to see if he is laughing at me, but instead he has his mouth open and staring at the two people that fell on top of me.

Well I guess he can be a little shocked. I'm surprised that I'm not so shocked that a talking dog and duck that both wear clothes and stand on two legs fell on me.

Before we can do anything else though, the whole ground starts to shake. "Not another earthquake!" Dan says. But its not. Four pillars rise up from the ground blocking us from escaping. Then some more heartless appear, ready for battle.

"Waak, soldier heartless." The duck screeches.. I look over at Dan who is raising his sword, ready to destroy them. It's time for me to show him how this is done.

I run up to the closest heartless and uppercut it up into the air with my keyblade, Then I jump up after it and give it a combo of strikes. It disappears before it even hits the floor.

A heartless tackles me after I fal back to the ground, but I quickly whack it on the head with my keyblade. I get ready to start a combo, but a fire ball blasts into the heartless, killing it.

I look around for more, but there aren't any. But now how are we supposed to get out of here?

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Dan's P.O.V.

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I slash once more at the heartless, and it disappears. I look around and see Sora fighting one, but Donald casts fire at it.

Yeah, there are final fantasy AND Disney characters here, not to mention some kid with a blade shaped like a key. I'm starting to think that maybe we have ventured into a video game.

"Dan, look out!" Sora shouts. I look up just in time to raise my sword in defense from two giant feet stomping me.

I jump out of the way as arms, a head, and a torso come after the legs. The body parts form together to form a whole body, but the parts move freely with no limbs.

The heartless starts to spin its hands around it like a saw and move towards us, but Sora hits them, making them falter in the air, giving me enough time to hit one making it disappear.

The other arm detaches itself from the other parts, and spins around. It flys right into Goofy making him fall unconscious.

While I was watching that, the rest of the parts had risen up into the air, and now before I have time to react, the fell right on top of me. I try to get up after, but I just fall down. Then a flash of green light goes by, and I feel much better. It looks like Donald can cast healing magic too.

When I get back up, the other hand and a foot are gone. The last foot starts jumping after Donald, but I quickly slash it out of existence.

All that's left now is the head and torso. They start to spin around, and then goes all crazy in different directions.

While trying to attack it, we all get knocked over like bowling pins. Finally, Donald casts thunder on it making it stunned. Sora finishes it off.

The head collapses into the torso and disappears, and a huge blue heart floats up into the air from where the heartless was.

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Sam's P.O.V.

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While Dan and Sora were fighting the heartless, Yuffie led me into this sewer kind of place. It was sort of like a cave. The problem was that I had to swim to get there.

Once we reached dry land, Yuffie, and another girl that came who's called Aerith, told me about the heartless and why they kidnapped my brother.

I would have called it farfetched if I wasn't tackled by a heartless earlier. When we got done talking, we just stared at a mural at the end of the cavern. It's actually pretty beautiful; it had a picture of the nigh sky with a crescent moon.

Yuffie stood up after awhile and said we can leave now. Sadly, I had to swim out again. Once out of there, they directed me to the third district of town.

There, I saw Dan, Sam, and to my surprise, Donald and goofy greeting each other. I walk over and Sora gives me a creepy smile that startles me into smacking him in the head. Dan, Donald, and Goofy laugh at the embarrassed Sora.

Sora then says he'll join the Disney crew, I'm still not sure where they're going, and then we all decided to head to the hotel, where they took Sora and Dan at first, to rest for the night.

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I close my notebook and put my pencil in the binding. I'm not sure why I'm making a diary, I never liked them. But if we ever get home, I could sell it as books and then become rich maybe.

"Hey, what are you dong?" Dan comes inside after being on the balcony outside.

"Oh, nothing." I say trying to act nonchalantly.

"I can tell when you have a secret Sam." Dan looks at m as if he could snatch my thoughts and read them. "Well anyways, I think we should go with Sora."

"But Donald won't let us." I say. Donald is much crankier in real life then on TV.

"We can sneak on board before they leave."

"Why do you even want to go?"

"Well if our world wasn't destroyed, then maybe we might find it while traveling on their ship. Besides, what are we going to do here?"

"Well… we could always help Cid at the shop." I know that saying that won't sop him. Secretly I agree with him, but I have to look out for the welfare of us.

"Sam, please." He says softly. "Mom and Dad are lonely without us."

Damn him and his influencing ways. "Fine." He smiles at me. It doesn't occur to me that this could be one of a few of his smiles that I'll ever see again.


	3. Chapter 3: What's so wonderful?

Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom hearts. I only own Dan and Sam.

-----

Sam's P.O.V.

-----

"Dan, it's pitch black in here!" I whine. We had snuck aboard the Disney crew's gummi ship and are now trying to find a place to hide.

"We're running out of time. I'm pretty sure all these rooms are pitch black." Dan says. We hear a door open and people talking. "Say hello to our hiding place, Sam." Dan pushes me into the room, comes in after, and closes the door.

"It's so cramp in here." I moan. Dan shushes me. The whole ship starts vibrating showing the ship must have finally departed. Then I hear a splashing sound. "What was that?" I ask.

"I, uh, stepped in something." He answers back.

It feels like it's been forever since we got in this room. When are we finally going to land? "I don't think I can stand being here much longer." I tell Dan.

"At least you don't have a wet foot." He replies.

"Hey Donald, Where's the bathroom?" I hear Sora ask outside.

"Down the hallway. It's the second door from the left." Donald answers. I hear Sora's big feet on the meal floor as he comes closer. It's a good thing we're not in the… oh shit.

The door opens and a light flashes on in the room. Why didn't it turn on when we came in? Sora is at the door staring with wide eyes at us. Finally he decides to speak. "What are you doing in here?" He asks.

"What does it look like we're doing?" Dan asks. I look back to remark at that question, but the sight of Dan sitting on a toilet with his leg still in it made me stop.

"Why do you have your foot in the toilet?" I ask, trying not to laugh.

"It's stuck." Dan simply says. Sora starts cracking up after that. "Sora, shut up. We don't want Donald to hear us."

"Why?" Sora asks. Does he really no know?

"Because we snuck on board." I answer.

"Why'd you sneak on board? Donald told me that you two were already on board when we arrived."

"Well Donald told us that we couldn't come." Dan says.

Sora is silent for a few second, in thought, then says, "I'm going to talk to Donald about this."

Before I can stop him, Sora runs back to the cockpit. "I guess we can get out of here now then." I say.

"Yeah… but can you help me out first?" Dan asks. I laugh at him as I pull him out.

-----

Dan's P.O.V.

-----

Once out of the toilet, Sam and I start to walk over to the cockpit. My wet foot is making a wet plop sound for each step it takes.

At the cockpit, Sora is already into an argument with Donald.

"And why couldn't they come with us?" Sora asks.

"Because, uh, the ship is too small for five people." Donald answers back.

"This ship is huge, and they can help us. You saw how Dan was able to fight those heartless off." How did I fight them off? I guess the adrenaline helped me out.

"Aw, phooey." Donald says in defeat. He notices us then. "I should just kick you out of my ship right now."

"Yeah,, sure thing. Just kick us out into the vast area of space and watch us die." I remark. I'm not going to be afraid of an angry duck any time soon.

"That's it, I'm turning around!" Donald exclaims.

"But Donald, the next world is just right there." Goofy points out the window, and sure enough, there is a world right in front of us.

"Great, I can just leave you two here when we're done."

"Fat chance, if they don't leave, then I don't leave either." Sora says. Wow, I've never had someone defend myself before. He must really like us.

"Aw phooey." Donald says again. "Get ready for landing." Sora quickly gets back into his seat and puts his seat belt on, but since there is no more seats, Sam and I hold on to a support beam that's near a wall.

-----

Sam's P.O.V.

-----

The gummi ship lands smoothly on the world as if it was an airplane landing instead of a rocket ship. Once it lands, Donald turn off the power and the ship returns into it's motionless state.

A door automatically opens at the side of the ship and we all line up in front of it, ready to jump out.

We all jump out, expecting to land on he ground, but instead we keep falling!

"I thought you landed us on the ground." Sora yells at Donald.

"Relax, look, we're falling slowly." Donald says. It's true, we are slowly falling down what looks to be a cylindrical room.

There are random objects in here too. I fell on a rocking char and sat on it until I accidentally fell off. Goofy decides to take a little nap while falling, so leans back on his back and starts to snore.

The floor finally comes up to us and we land on the floor as lightly as if we just stepped on to it. Goofy lands with a smack on the floor and wakes up with a start.

As Goofy is getting up, a small rabbit wearing clothes runs by us shouting, "I'm late, I'm late. I'm really really late. No time to say hello goodbye, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late." Why does that sound familiar?

"what's he so late about?" Asks Dan.

"Let's go follow him and find out." Sora runs into the corridor that the rabbit went through and we follow.

At the end of the corridor is a big brown door. Sora opens it and does a take because there's another door behind the brown one. He opens that to see another door. "Oh come on!" Sora rapidly opens more doors until, finally, a way out appears. Dan laughs at Sora, who is panting from the excursion.

In the next room, there are random objects like clocks, shelves, books, and other things all on the walls. As the others go towards a small door, I grab Dan to stop him.

"What's going on?" He asks. I'm glad that he knows when something is up with me.

"This place looks familiar to me." I say. He gives me a confused look.

"Have you been here before?" He asks.

I shake my head. "But this room and that rabbit… it just reminds me of something."

Dan things for a few seconds. "Well, maybe you'll remember what it reminds you of as we go along." he takes a step towards the others, but we are suddenly lifted into the air. A table had sprouted from the ground we were standing on.

"Don't spill the drinks!" Sora shouts at us. We both look down and see two bottles on the table.

"What's with the drinks?" I ask as Dan and I jump off the table.

"We need to drink from one of these to get small enough to go through the talking door." Sora explains.

"Talking door…" I mumble to myself. Another thing that sounds familiar.

Sora, Donald and Goofy drink from a bottle and shrink down to the size of about a fourth of my leg and I follow suite.

Once small, we take a few steps towards the door, but some heartless stop us in our tracks.

"There's heartless here too?" Sora exclaims. Sora, Donald, and Goofy charge at the heartless as I back under the table since I have no weapon.

I bump into something, and thinking it was the table, I look back to see a huge, fat heartless. I run, screaming as the heartless charges after me, but I stop when I hear a huge crash behind me.

A huge foot is where the heartless would have been, and connected to that foot is Dan!

He must not have drunken the drink then. Dan goes around stomping on the rest of the heartless until there are none left.

Sora and I run to the door. "Hey, let us through!" Sora shouts at it, but the door just snores at us.

"Maybe there's a different way in?" I suggest. Sora stares at the door some more, but finally looks back and nods his head. "Dan!" I shout for Dan to hear. "Look around to see if there is another door somewhere!" Dan nods his head and starts looking around.

He look's under the table, in the fire place, and other places that I'm surprised you can even check under. Finally he pushes a bed out of the way, and finds a doorway. We go through the door as Dan goes back to take a drink.

-----

Dan's P.O.V.

-----

Once out of that bizarre room, we enter what looks to be a garden. There's a hedge that has an arch shaped like a heart in front of us. In front of us are people shaped like cards, a little girl, some lady, and the rabbit in an outdoors courtroom.

"I declare you guilty of trying to steal my heart!" Shouts the woman. She is where the judge would be in the courtroom.

"But I have done nothing wrong." The girl pleads from the defendants stand. "you have no proof." That lady thinks a little girl tried to take her heart?

"Proof?!" Shouts the lady. "The proof is that I says o!" The lady stand sup and pounds her hand on the podium to make her point. "Now, off with her head!"

"Wait!" Sora shouts as he runs up to the girl. "She's not the one who did it."

"Yeah, it was the hart-" Goofy covers his mouth before finishing.

"Are we not supposed to talk about heartless?" I ask him.

"Ayuk, we're not supposed to be mer, uh, mud-" Donald assist him by shouting meddling. "Right, we're not supposed to do that in other world's affairs."

"Well anyways." Sora continues. "She's innocent. You've got to let her go."

"Do you have any evidence?!" The lady asks, but the look on Sora's face is enough of an answer. "Go find me some evidence, and I MAY let her go, GUARDS!: She shouts. The cards grab the girl and lock her in a big bird cage next to the judges seat.

We all walk over to the girl to talk to her. "Who are you people?" She asks.

"I'm Sora, and this is Donald, Goofy, Dan, and Sam." Sora points all of us out.

"Well thank you for helping me. I'm Alice." Sam gasps as She says this, but it looks like I'm the only one who heard. "Can you really find enough evidence?" Alice asks.

"Of course we can." Sora answers boastfully. "But, umm… what's evidence?" I smack my hand against my forehead as Donald and Goofy fall to the ground and Sam looks down worryingly at the two.

"Don't worry." I step in front of Sora. "I know what evidence is, and we'll be able to find it." Alice looks pleased at that.

"You should go into the lotus forest and look for the Cheshire cat. He should be able to help you." Alice tells us.

"Got it, don't worry, we'll get you out soon." We all head to the doorway that she pointed at. Wait, a doorway? I look around some more. This isn't outside, this is another room!

-----

The lotus forest is like a huge plastic forest. The first thing I notice when I walk in is the huge blades of grass. The second thing I notice is a cat on top of a chopped off tree trunk.

Waak, who are you!?" Donald screeches. Looks like he got frightened by the cat.

"Poor Alice will get her head cut off for something she didn't do." Comments the cat. "I am the Cheshire cat, and you can help prove Alice's innocence."

"So you're the Cheshire cat?" Sora asked. I shake my head at him. I really hate stupid questions.

The cat nods his head and says, "The shadows have already left the forest, but they have left four things behind. Three are easy to find, and if you find the fourth, I'll give you a prize." And with that, he just vanishes into thin air.

"What kind of prize can a cat give us?" Donald asks in disbelief."

"I bet it'll be a good prize." Sam answers. "Your just mad that he scared you." Sora and Goofy laugh at this as Donald starts to go into a tantrum.

"I think we should split up to get the evidence faster." I say to change the subject. "Donald and Goofy will go together. Sora, you can take care of yourself. Just find something like footprints or maybe body part-"

"A body part?!" Sora shouts in disbelief.

"Yes like an antennae of a heartless. Sam and I will go together since she has no weapon. That okay everyone?" They all nod at me. Donald looks happy at the though of being away from teenagers.

As the others walk away, Sam comes over and asks, "Why'd you separate us?"

"This way we can find the evidence faster, and now we can freely talk. So you find more about this place?"

"Well… This doesn't quite make since, but I think this world is off of 'Alice in Wonderland', you know, a Disney movie." She explains.

I think about what she is saying. It's actually not that hard to believe, what with final fantasy characters, and Donald and Goofy around. I tell her this and she says, "maybe all these worlds are based off of movies and games."

"Hey guys look at this." We look over to see that Sora became giant again.

"How is that supposed to help find evidence?!" I shout up at him.

He starts walking around, looking over some large platforms that look like lily pads. "I don't know, I just thought that maybe- whoa." Not noticing the chopped off tree trunk, he falls slamming his butt down on the trunk and causing it to be pushed into the ground.

A lily pad platform suddenly rises underneath Sam and I, pushing us up to other platforms. "I am so getting sick of that!" Sam shouts.

I notice a doorway at the end of the platforms. "Sora, find a way to get small again. Sam and I are going to investigate over there." I point to the exit.

-----

We jump through the exit expecting to land on land, but instead we keep falling again. We randomly land on a faucet in the bizarre room. "I'm really starting to hate this world." I groan.

"what's with he random box over there?" Sam points to a random box on a shelf next to the faucet.

"I don't know, jump over there and see what's inside." I answer.

"Won't that kill me if I miss?" She looks down at the far away floor.

"The laws of physics is… different here. Maybe since the worlds are much smaller, the gravity is messed up and won't let you die from falling." I jump over to the shelf to prove my point.

Sam looks down again, nervousness written all over her face. "Come on and jump.' I persist. "You'll make it, trust me." She quickly surges up some courage and leaps into the air, only to crash right into the shelf wall. I quickly grab her hands and pull her up. "Like de ja vu eh Sam. I tease.

"Shut up and open the box already." She folds her hands to her chest and looks away.

I sigh and open the box. "Oh man, that stinks!" I fan my face with my hand.

"I don't remember a heartless stinking that bad." Sam says. She's holding her nose to stop smelling it.

I look inside and grimace. "I didn't know the heartless went to the bathroom." I quickly close the box back up.

Sam stares at the box with her eyes wide open. "Do you mean that-"

"Well, it looks like you found all the evidence." We turn around to see the Cheshire cat on top of the faucet.

"Yeah, so now we can save Alice." Sam says cheerfully.

"Yes, Alice can go free, but what about yourselves?" The cat asks.

"What do you mean?" I ask. Are we going to be put on trial next?

"Oh, you'll find out soon enough." He starts to fade away but reappears again. "I almost forgot your prize. Here you go." Two little blue orbs appear and glide right through Sam and me. I shiver when it makes contact. It's really cold!

"Hey, what was that?!" Sam asks. Seems she doesn't think of it as a gift.

"Why don't you ask that duck of yours?" The Cheshire cat laughs as it disappears. The laughter is still echoing through the room with him gone.

"So weird." Sam says to no one in particular. She looks around, then back at me. :So how do we get out of here now?"

There is only one way I can think of. "Sorry about this." I tell her.

"Sorry about wh-" I push her off the shelf. I watch her fall. She's screaming the whole time, but at least she's sensible enough to not bang her head on the ground.

I jump and land gracefully on my feet, but she pushes me to the ground. "you idiot, you could have killed me." She shouts.

"I-I told you, the gravity is all messed up here." I knew she'd act like this, but I'm still not quite prepared for her.

"You, you, GRR!" She stomps off to the courtroom. I sigh. I can only hope that we can get back home with out her tearing me to pieces.

-----

Sam's P.O.V.

-----

That stupid little piece of shit of a brother. I am sooo going to shove his voice box right up-

-----

Dan's P.O.V.

-----

Back in the courtroom, the people look completely bored. The rabbit is sitting down looking like he's about to doze off, the queen is leaning her face on one hand, and playing with the podium with the other. The cards… are still standing still.

"Hey Dan!" I turn around to see Sora, Donald and Goofy running over with a box for each person. "We found three of the evidence, what about…" Sora stops in front of me and looks around. "Where's Sam?"

"She's somewhere, hopefully trying to cool her anger." I say. Sora, confusion all over his face, tries to ask bout it, but I quickly change subject. "So we have the four evidence, so let's free Alice. I hand him the box I'm holding and quickly walk off to the wall near Alice's cage.

Sora puts the evidence in front of the queen and walks on to the defendant's podium.

"Hmm, yes that is a lot of evidence." Says the queen, rubbing her chin. "Guards, bring in my evidence!" A card lays an identical box next to the others. "There are too many to just check. You, pick one box and we'll see who's guilty!" The five boxes suddenly shuffle around in a blur and lay back in a line.

"What!?" Sora exclaims. "But we went through all the trouble of-"

"Disobedience will make you guilty!"

"Come on Sora, you have an 80% chance. Just choose one." I tell him.

Sora sighs, "Why me?" He stares at each box, maybe he's contemplating which box has which, using a scientifically manner. "Eeny meeny miny moe." I slap my forehead as he goes on!

"Aha, I pick this one." Sora opens a box and out pops… a fake Sam and me!

"Sora, I am never letting you do something that involves luck ever again!" I shout as bars appear around me as a cage.

"Ha, I knew it was you two!" The queen shouts. She then looks around. "Wait, where's the girl!? Guards, go get her!"

The guards run to the two exits in search for Sam. "Gosh, was it really you and Sam that tried to take her heart?" Goofy asks me.

"How could we possibly have if we were with you guys the whole time it happened." I explain angrily. "This is just what the Cheshire cat warned us." I sigh.

"Let! Me! GOOO!" Sam is shrieking as four cards carry her to a cage next to me.

"I think she failed at cooling down." Sora remarks.

"She needs to listen to music, but sadly- Wait!" I dig around in one of m pant pockets and pull out an ipod. "Yes, I can't believe I forgot about this!"

"What is it?" Sora asks, absolutely confused.

"It's an ipod. A small device that plays music that I've put inside it." I explain. Sora just stares wide eyed at me. "What ever, Sam." Sam glares daggers at me from within her cage. "Want some music?" I wave the ipod in front of her like a biscuit to a dog. She quickly takes it out of my hand, puts the headphones on, and listens to music.

"So Sora, what are you going to do now?" I ask.

"Huh?" Sora asks, bewildered.

"She's going to cut our heads off! Go do something about it!"

"OH!" Sora quickly runs off to the queen.

"We're doomed." I sigh.

-----

Sora's P.O.V.

-----

What can I possibly say to get the queen to let them go. I walk up to the queen, but it takes her ten seconds to notice me.

"You can go now." She says as sweetly as she can. "Unless you'd like your head cut off too?" A hint of glee is shown in her voice.

"Uh, n-no." I say, a little taken back by her words. "I want to prove Dan and Sam's innocence." I point towards the two cages.

The queen gets her anger back now. "Preposterous, they were found guilty and the trial is over!"

"Well, uh… I'll just have to… free them by force then!" I wield my key blade and the queen looks like she's about to bust a blood vessel..

"You, you dare defy me?! GUARDS!" A tower appears in the middle of the room and a card turns a wheel that's attached to it. The bird cage that Alice is still in raises high into the air and a veil covers Alice." OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!" Roars the queen, and the cards attack.

I duck as a card swings an axe at my head and combo it, causing it to crumble to the ground. A spear stabs me in the leg, but Donald quickly heals me and uses blizzard on the card. "For having no legs, these cards can move fast." I comment. Donald just grunts and runs off.

The whole time, the queen is howling. "Off with their heads!" Finally, Sam snaps back at her. "Will you just shut up already?!"

"What?!" The queen shouts, taken back by Sam.

You heard me! You're drowning out my music, so SHUT UP!" At that last word, a big ball of fire blasts off from her and hit's the queen in the head, causing her and, surprisingly, her guards to fall unconscious.

"See, yuck, I told you it was a good idea to give those two that there fire spell." Goofy tells Donald.

"Sora, it's not over yet." Dan tells me as I begin to put my blade away.

"What do you mean? We beat them up." I say.

"They'll just gain consciousness and fight you again. Try taking out that tower." He points over at the tower.

"Okay, if you say so." I walk over to the tower and examine it. It looks pretty fragile. I take on great swing at it with the key blade, and it crumbles down to small pieces of rock.

The queen starts to gain conscious. She looks up ad notices the destroyed tower. "What have you done!" She cries out. We all look at Alice's cage as I makes a screeching sound and falls to the ground. The veil gets out of the way to reveal- "She's gone! You fools, fine her at once!" the cards run round frantically in circles before finally heading to the Lotus forest.

"Let's get out of here before they notice us." I jump in surprise of Dan whispering in my ear.

"How'd you get out?" I ask.

"I just busted the cages open with my sword." He motions me to follow him and he walks to the bizarre room, dragging a much more calm Sam with him.

-----

As we're walking to the table to drink the bottles, the Cheshire cat appears on it. "Poor Alice, taken by the shadows." He says.

"Do you know where she is?" I ask.

The cat nods his head. "To get her, you need to make the shadow come out. Try to brighten up the place." the cat then fades away.

"That cat is so weird." Says Dan.

"Speaking of the Cheshire cat, did he give you the blizzard spell as a reward for the evidence too?" I ask him.

"Of course, that was the blizzard spell." Dan mutters to himself. "Yeah, Sam and I got it too."

"Great… so how do we brighten the room?"

"Look pretty lanterns." We look over at Sam who is laying on the table pointing up at the ceiling.

"Perfect." Dan says. He grabs a bottle and drinks out of it, becoming bigger. Then he grabs me and lifts me into the air.

"Whoa, don't drop me!" I shout.

He rolls his eyes at me. "Just cast fire on the lamps." Once high enough, I give two well aimed fire spells on the lamps, causing them to be lit up.

Dan puts me down and drinks out of the other bottle" So what now?" He asks once he finished shrinking.

"Are you prepared? If not, to bad." The cat appears and vanishes quickly that I didn't even know where he appeared at.

Sam screams, pointing up at the ceiling again. We all look up to see a huge heartless fall and land on the ground near us. It rolls out it's arms like they are made of paper.

"Crap, the bottles are gone!" Dan shouts, I guess we're stuck being small then.

"Don't worry, I'll take care of this." Donald says. "Fire!"

"Donald no!" Dan shouts. The heartless uses it's two shakers to block the fire spell, and then they catch on fire. "great now we have a huge heartless that can hit us with FLAMING objects!"

"Deep freeze!" I cast blizzard causing the heartless to shutter. I quickly combo it in the chest.

"Take this!" Dan takes a running slice at the heartless' leg. The sword slices through like safety scissors against paper.

The heartless falls on it's knees and we all attack it. Donald and Sam cast blizzard on the flaming shakers, goofy and Dan attack it's chest, and I jump at it's head. "Die already. Fire!" The head starts to burn, then it spreads all over the heartless, engulfing it in flames.

The heartless goes crazy, swinging the shakers everywhere. It smacks me right in the head and I fall head first into the ground.

I rub my head and look for the heartless, but all I see is a giant, blue, floating heart.

"So where's Alice?" Sam asks us.

"She is gone from here, but maybe you can find her somewhere else." The Cheshire cat appears and disappears again.

"great, but why would the heartless kidnap a little girl? Why not just take her heart here? Dan asks.

"Maybe they're going to sacrifice her for something. Sam says.

"Yeah, sure thing." Dan says sarcastically.

'Hey, what's with all this racket?" We all look over to see the talking door has finally woken up. "Can't a door get some sleep here?"

He gives a great big yawn and we all peek inside the gaping mouth.

"Huh?" My key blade appears in my hand and points itself at the doors mouth. A stream of light connects the key blade to the mouth and we hear a clicking sound as if the door got locked.

"A gummi piece!" Donald picks up a gummy looking object that fell out of the door's mouth.

"What just happened?" Sam, Dan and I ask all at once.

"Well not sure about that beam of light, but this gummi block can upgrade our gummi ship." Goofy explains.

"Any more stupid questions?" Donald asks us.

"Not sure if it's stupid or not, but how do we climb back up to the ship? Dan asks. Donald gives a sigh.


	4. Chapter 4: It's a jungle out there

Disclaimer: I only own Dan and Sam. I don't really feel like owning anything Disney related anyways… okay, maybe a few things.

Chapter 4: It's a jungle out there.

-----

Sora's P.O.V.

-----

"Are we there yet?" I ask Donald once again. We've been flying for awhile now and still haven't gotten to the next world yet.

"No!" Donald quacks once again.

"Oh… how about now?" Donald starts to mumble things including getting a new person with a key.

"Yeah, good luck with that." Dan comments.

"So, can I drive then?" I ask.

"No way, if any human is going to drive, it's going to be the one with a license!" Sam shouts.

"Not considering that there is a huge difference between a gummi ship and a car, I have a permit, and since your eighteen, I can legally drive too." Dan says.

"I am the only driver, so shut- oh we're here." Our heads turn to the windshield to see Donald spoke the truth. The world looks to be completely filled by a jungle.

"The king would never go to a backwater place like this, let's go on." Donald starts to go around the world.

"Wait, Riku and Kiari might be down there!" I stand up and walk over to the pilot's seat. "We've got to go and check."

"We are not going down there!" Donald shrieks.

"Oh, come on." I plead.

"Sora, there isn't that much of a chance of them being down there. Probably no chance at all." Dan comments. I make a pouting face at that.

"I don't care!: I take the controls from Donald and try to head to the world. I press a button to see what it does.

"No not that button!" The ship suddenly blasts full force to the planet…

-----

Dan's P.O.V.

-----

"Ouch…" I rub my head as I sit up from where I was laying. "That's the second time in I've ever fallen unconscious… and my first time was just yesterday." I check my self for any broken bones. There aren't any, but it's then that I notice I'm wet.

I look behind me to see a huge waterfall cascading past what must be a cave. "I need to go find the others." I get up and start walking to where I hope the exit is.

-----

Sora's P.O.V.

-----

"Dang… hard landing." I look up at the Sora sized hole in the ceiling of the tree house. "Huh?" I stay still, trying to hear a sound that I think I heard. I hear a clicking noise like nails on wood. "Who's there?"

The clicking stops. "I said, who's there!?" The next thing I know is that a huge jaguar is on top of me and only not eating me because my key blade's in his mouth. What a great way to go, eaten by a jaguar.

Suddenly, some one starts screaming and a man rams into the jaguar, sending him off of me. I look up to see a completely tanned man with long black hair, and only wearing a loin cloth, pointing a spear towards the jaguar. The jaguar thinks weather he can take us both, but runs off in defeat.

"uh, thanks." I tell the man. He stares at me confusingly. "Oh." An idea hits me. "Have you seen my friends?" The man repeats the word 'friends.' "Yeah, friends. There's a loud mouth named Do-" I stop myself and the man looks even more confused. "Never mind, I'm looking for my friends Riku and Kiari, also Dan and Sam." I add.

The man looks at me for a few seconds then speaks some gibberish, followed by, "Friends here." Then he says the same gibberish again.

"Really?!" I ask. He nods.

"Tarzan." He says to me.

"Tarzan?" I ask, confused. He nods again.

"Tarzan go." He points at himself.

He must be saying his name. "Oh, Tarzan go, Sora go go." He runs off and I follow him. I really hope he means all four of my friends are here.

-----

Sam's P.O.V.

-----

"Why yes Jane, I would like some more tea." I tell Jane. She pouts some tea into my cup. Jane came here with her dad to study gorillas. It turns out this world is based off the movie 'Tarzan.' "So where's your dad anyways?" I ask her.

"Oh, he just went out to do some more experiments. Clayton, our guard, quickly tried to go after him once he found out my dad snuck away." Jane laughs as she says that last part.

"So… find anything interesting yet?"

"We.., we haven't been able to find any gorillas yes, but we have found something interesting. We found a man who was raised by the gorillas since he was a baby, can you believe it?!"

"Oh wow, I would have to see him to believe it." I lie.

"Well, he should be here any minute, and you will see." Just as she finishes that, the curtains at the tent entrance part out of the way, and in comes Tarzan. "Tarzan! Good to see you again, and who's this?"

I look behind Tarzan and see that Sora's with him.

"Sora, you-!" I begin to shout, but remember Jane is here." You-you made it!"

"Ye-yeah…" Sora mumbles, knowing what I was going to say.

"Oh, so this is one of your friends you were talking about?" Jane asks.

"Yeah, one down and three to go." I say.

"Make that one more to go." A man that I recognize as Clayton comes into the tent, bringing Donald and Goofy with him.

"Of course, the only person that's actually lost is my brother." I say.

"Sora!" Goofy exclaims.

"Goofy!" Sora also exclaims. They run up to each other like two lovers who haven't seen each other in year and, thankfully, only hug. Sora then looks at Donald, but they both quickly look away in anger. "Well any ways-" Sora begins. "I'm staying." Both Sora and Donald say at the same time. "Huh?" Sora says, bewildered.

"Look at this." Goofy holds up a gummi block.

"We found it and think the king might have left it." Donald says while still looking the other way.

"Can' the gummi block have just fallen from space?" I remember the gummi asteroids that our ship had to avoid in space. "Aw, what do you know?" Donald groans.

"Oh, that's right!" Sora exclaims."

"See, I told you I'm right." I say.

"No, no about that. Tarzan says that Riku and Kiari are here."

"You mean your friends from your world?" What a strange place for them to be.

"Yeah, but he sort of spoke in gibberish when I asked where."

"He must have been talking in the gorilla language." Jane explains. I didn't even notice she was listening to our conversation.

"But how do we figure out what it means then?" Sora asks.

"We've been showing Tarzan some pictures that we have. He would tell us what they are in gorilla, and we would teach him the English version. I have some more pictures to show him, so maybe one of them could be that world."

-----

Sora's P.O.V.

-----

All he candles in the tent are blown out to make it darker. Jane puts an old overhead on the table, and with a lit candle under it, it shows the first picture on the wall.

The first picture shows a man kneeling down in front of a lady, offering her flowers. Tarzan look at it deeply. Maybe he's thinking of giving Jane flowers. More pictures show up one by one. There's another picture of a lady, a gorilla, a ship, two people ready to sword fight, and finally…

"Huh?" I stare at the last picture in shock.

"What's up?" Sam asks me.

"Uh, nothing…" I say. Why does this look so familiar? I stare at the picture carefully. The picture shows a huge castle. It looks pretty complex with many doors and towers everywhere. But why does it look familiar? I've never been off of my island world before now.

I didn't even notice the slide show was over until Jane had lit all of the candles.

"So Tarzan, were any of them what you were talking about?" Jane asks. Tarzan shakes his head.

"I bet I know where your friends are." Clayton speaks up for the second time. "they must be with the other gorillas, in their nesting grounds. We've been searching for the nests for awhile now, but Tarzan won't show us them." Clayton glares at Tarzan then.

"Mr. Clayton." Jane argues. "Tarzan will tell us when he thinks we're ready-"

"Tarzan show." Tarzan says.

"A-are you sure?" Tarzan looks towards Sora, then nods.

"Great, I'll come with you. The jungle can be a very dangerous place after all." Clayton shows a huge smile.

-----

Sam's P.O.V.

-----

The whole way through a lagoon that we're crossing, I glare daggers at Clayton. I know he' sup to no good, I mean, I've seen the movie so many times. He's going to trick all of us and hunt down all the gorillas to sell them… or something. I can't let that happen.

We all stop, and I look up. "You've got to be kidding me." I say, In front of us is a bamboo branch, or something, that reaches all the way up to the tree tops. "I can NOT climb up a pole."

"Well we've got to get up there somehow, little girl." Clayton says. I twitch as he says the little girl part.

Tarzan grunts, then comes up to me and picks me up before I can yell at Clayton. He jumps up on the pole and climbs up with just his feet and one hand.

Even though it is pretty cool, I turn red form embarrassment as Sora, Donald, and Goofy laugh at me.

-----

Tarzan finally let's me go once we reach the top of the trees. I look around at awe of the surroundings. It looks so peaceful. "It's so beautiful." I say.

"Yeah, it reminds me of the forest in my world." Sora steps next to me, also looking around.

"It reminds me of the woods near my grandma's. I loved to explore them."

"Humph, it reminds me that this world is just some backwater planet." Donald grunts.

"Shut up you stupid bird!" I fold my arms and look in the other direction. "Oh, gorillas!" In front of me were two gorillas that were talking to Tarzan. I recognize them as Tarzan's foster parents.

As they are speaking to each other, we all can tell that the conversation isn't going in our favor. Finally, Tarzan's 'dad' pounds his fists into the ground, signaling the argument is over. Then he look sup in some direction and heads off. "Kerchek…" Tarzan watches as his 'mom' also leaves.

"Was he looking towards the tree house?" Sora asks.

"Tree house?" Goofy asks.

"Yeah, I crash landed in the tree house, and that's where I met Tarzan." Sora rubs the back of his head. "My head still hurts from it.

"Hey wait!" I look around. "Where's Clayton?" Everyone looks around too. "Oh, shit! I realize what's happened. "Sora, show us where the tree house is!"

-----

Clayton stands at the doorway, target in his sight. The target: a small girl gorilla playing with a globe. Clayton raises his gun slowly as not to scare her away.

He points the gun at her. Where to shoot her? Her arm, leg, or maybe her head. He decides on a spot, aims, and- "Waaa!" Boom! The bullet misses by mere inches and the gorilla quickly runs off.

Clayton looks around to see that Donald had made him miss.

"Clayton, how could you?" Sora looks disappointedly at him.

"No, you don't understand… ah! You see, a snake was slithering by. I just saved that poor gorilla's life." Tarzan just shakes his head at that.

"You sick, evil, bastard!" I yell at him. I knew he was going to try to capture them, but kill?

"M-my mom says that I don't need to know who my dad is." Clayton mumbles.

I stare at him incredulously, then just shake my head. "What ever, come on guys. Let's go back to camp.

-----

Dan's P.O.V.

-----

"Crap, a dead end." I had climbed through the waterfall cavern, hoping to reach the top of the cliff, and had found a tunnel that led to here. 'Here' is a small round room filled with plants. There is a huge tree in the back with many butterflies clinging to it.

A bright light suddenly comes from the tree and the butterflies fly off, revealing a huge keyhole where they were.

"Another one." I mumble, recalling the talking door's keyhole. I start going towards it when many howls and the pounding of the ground made me turn back.

A pack of gorillas are at the entrance, Howling their heads off. I draw my sword, ready for if any try to attack…

-----

Sora's P.O.V.

-----

Back in the tent, Jane had an argument with Clayton about him shooting one and him never going near one again. Finally, Clayton stormed out.

"Don't worry," Jane tells us. "Clayton is a good guy at heart."

"Doubt it." Sam snorts. Jane sighs at that. Bang! A blast of a gun Is heard outside. "What was that?!"

"It sounds like a gun." I say and run outside.

-----

Dan's P.O.V.

-----

I wait a few seconds, but then notice that they were more distracted by something on the other side of them. I let my guard down, but then some monkey shaped heartless jump over the gorillas and race to me. I raise my sword, ready to strike, but they run right by me. "Huh?" I look back and see them congressing in front of the keyhole. "That doesn't look good." I charge after them

-----

Sora's P.O.V.

-----

Outside, I gasp at the sight. A gorilla is surrounded by a circle of heartless. "Heartless!" I yell and run up to them.

"You sure they aren't just monkeys?" Sam runs after me.

I combo one and it disappears, it's heart floating away. "Pretty sure."

-----

Sam casts fire on the last one, making it disappear. I look over to make sure the gorilla's all right, and jump when I see it's face right in front of mine. It pushes a gummi piece in my hand and runs off.

"Another gummi piece?" Sam walks over to me. "Hey Goofy, didn't you say a gorilla dropped that gummi piece you found?"

"Ayuk, I sure did." Goofy answers.

"Hmm… I'm starting to think that these gorillas can poop out gummi pieces." Donald and Goofy sweat drop at that.

"I don't really think that's it Sam." I say.

"Oh…" We just stand here, not quite sure on what to do next. "So Donald, what now?"

"What, how am I supposed to know!?" Donald shouts.

"Your right, why would I ask a duck who got tricked by a hen… uh, never mind. Let's just go this way." She quickly runs off towards a path full of bamboo.

"What did she mean by you getting tricked by a hen?" I ask Donald.

"Uh, nothing." Donald runs after Sam.

"It's a long story Sora… but I'll tell you it later." Goofy runs after them and I smile at the prospect of having a laugh at Donald.

I start walking, but hear screaming. "Sam!" I run after them

-----

Sam's P.O.V.

-----

I… can't move. It feels like there's a tone on me. I open my eyes and scream bloody murder. A jaguar is on top of me, rearing it's head back to strike.

I close my eyes again, waiting to be killed. Instead I feel the great weight thrown off of me.

"You okay?" I open up my eyes this time to see Sora above me, holding his hand out.

"Yeah, what ever." I say. I get up, ignoring his helping hand. How could I let a kid four years younger than me save my life? "Where is that jaguar!: I can take my anger out on it.

"Umm…" Sora points behind me, and I curse. The jaguar is already dead with a spear through it's chest. "I though you'd want it dead."

"Yeah, but I wanted to kill it." I put. A loud scream sounds from not that far away. "Now what?"

"Jane, trouble!" Tarzan runs back to camp.

"This jungle is more trouble than it's worth." Donald grumbles.

"But the king could still be here." Goofy says.

"And Riku and Kiari." Sora adds.

"My brother's still here too." I also add.

"Okay, okay. Maybe we should stick around a little longer." Donald sighs.

"Hey wait a second, aren't we supposed to be going to help Jane?" Goofy asks.

We all just stare at each other for a bit. "Oh yeah… well let's go." I finally say.

-----

Sora's P.O.V.

-----

We run back into the tent to find a complete mess and no Jane to be found.

"Where could she be?" I ask. Tarzan starts to sniff around the tent.

"This way!" He runs back outside.

"I though he was raised by gorillas, not dogs." Sam says.

"I said I'm a Goof, not a Dog, darn it!" Goofy randomly shouts. We all just stare at him.

"Okay… I'm just gonna follow Tarzan now." I slowly back out of the tent and then run away.

-----

Tarzan leads us back to the tall bamboo pole in the hippo lagoon.

Sam sighs at seeing this. "Okay Tarzan, carry me up there." She blatantly says. Tarzan picks her up and once again climbs one handed up the pole. I follow after.

-----

Sam's P.O.V.

-----

Tarzan gently puts me on the tree tops and I once again look at the beauty of the forest. The majestic birds flying away, the enormous trees, the… huge black fruit that's stuck to the side of a tree?

"Tarzan!" Jane shouts from inside a vine cage.

"Jane!" Tarzan starts to run over to her, but some more monkey heartless block his path.

"Those damned dirty apes!" I yell. "I'm talking about the heartless." I say when I notice Tarzan staring at me. He keeps staring though. "What ever, Blizzard!" I freeze the first few heartless. Thankfully, Tarzan stops staring at me, and smashes the heartsickles to pieces.

Donald casts fire on another heartless as Sora and Goofy take out the rest. "Is it just me or are these heartless getting too easy?" Sora asks as he takes out the last one.

I'm about to agree with him when twice as many heartless pop up. "What the hell?" I exclaim. "This time go away and don't come back!" I blast a fire spell at one that tries to jump on me.

I suddenly have that strange sensation of someone staring at me. I look back, ready to use magic, but all I see is that huge dark fruit.

"You know, something's not quite right about you." I examine it some more.

"Sam, what are you doing? Get back in battle!" Donald yells at me, while dodging a heartless.

"Yeah, yeah." I say, still examining the fruit. "Hey Sora, come here." I wave Sora over.

"What's up?" Sora asks nonchalantly while still fighting the heartless.

"I want you to hit this fruit." I tell him.

He looks at me confusingly. "Why?"

"Cuz I'm hungry, now hit it!" I push him towards the fruit.

"Okay, okay, sheesh." He looks up at it, a and with one good strike, cuts it right in half. "Happy?"

"Yes." I say as all the heartless disappear.

"Waak, where did the heartless go." Donald looks around as if they were playing hide and seek with him.

"They disappeared because we destroyed the magically evil fruit." I tell him.

"_We_ destroyed?" Sora grins at me.

"Hey, I told you to kill it."

"Guys, shouldn't we make sure Jane's okay?" Goofy interrupts.

"Is it just me, or is Goofy becoming more sensible then us?" I ask.

"It's just you." Donald growls.

I glare at him while walking to Jane. "Jane, are you all right, what happened?" Sora asks.

"Y-yes, it was Clayton. Tarzan, guys, Clayton sent those m-monsters after me and this poor gorilla." She points towards a gorilla that is cowering behind her. "He must be trying to get all of them." Jane realizes.

"Uh yeah, we sort of already figured that out when he first tried to shoot a gorilla, but summoning heartless is new to us." Sora says.

"So now what should we do though?" I ask him.

"Now we stop Clayton!" He answers.

"How?" I ask

"I don't know… beat him up?" He shakes his head. "Anyways, we'll think of something when we get there. Come on!" He starts running away.

"We don't even know where he is, Sora." Sora trips on the air and falls face first into the ground.

"Ugh, well where would there be gorillas, Tarzan?" Sora says while getting up.

Tarzan looks thoughtful for a moment, then says, "Follow."

-----

_There's no way they're escaping this time._ A pack of gorillas are trapped between a cliff wall and a dozen heartless. _Your mine this time._

Suddenly, the biggest gorilla roars and charges through the many heartless towards me. The heartless quickly retaliate and the gorilla rolls on the ground, stunned.

_Nice try, but now it's my turn_. I raise my gun, and aim for the head. Just one little click and-

"Clayton!" I look over to see those annoying kids and their friends approaching. _Damn those kids_.

-----

Sora's P.O.V.

-----

"Not Clayton." Tarzan says, followed by that same gorilla word again, "Not Clayton."

Clayton roars and the heartless swarm around us. Tarzan, Donald, Goofy, and I swat them away as Sam casts blizzard spells all over.

A loud bang sounds and my left arm feels like it's almost been ripped off my shoulder. I look at my arm and see a small hole.

"D-Donald, I think I've been shot." I turn to Donald, who is bashing a heartless on the head. He sighs at hearing that.

"Cure!" I watch as a piece of metal comes out of my arm and falls on the floor. I look back up just in time to see Clayton aiming at me again. "Not this time!" I roll out of the way as another bang sounds. As Clayton readies the next shot, I jump up and strike at the gun.

With a loud snap, the gun breaks right in half. Everyone watches Clayton as he just stares, dumbfounded, at his broken gun.

"It's over Clayton!" I tell him. "You lose, just stop it." Clayton looks up at me, with such an angry glare that I back up a bit.

"You! You'll pay for this!" Clayton backs up to the rock cliff and the earths tarts to shake.

"Earthquake!" Sam screams as she quickly hides underneath Goofy's shield.

The cliff explodes, hitting us all with rock pieces, except for Sam, who used the shield. As the rumbling stops, I look up and see Clayton sitting in midair. "Why can't he just stop? Doesn't he understand that what he's doing is evil?"

"Sora, you have a lot to learn." Sam walks up to me. "Just because your all nice and caring doesn't mean everyone else is."

"You think I'm nice and caring?"

"Well no duh, you were chosen by the key blade weren't you? Now let's go beat the evil out of this guy."

"I nod my head and raise my key blade. It's then that I notice Tarzan, Donald, and Goofy already in battle with the floating Clayton. "Hey, leave some for me!" I shout while running after them.

-----

Sam's P.O.V.

-----

I watch as Sora runs after the floating Clayton. That kid Is just so… innocent. There would be no possible way for a fourteen year old kid to retain that much innocence in my world

Sora swings his key blade below Clayton, and a green chameleon heartless appears under Clayton. That's how Clayton looked like he was sitting on air.

The chameleon heartless rears back on its hind legs, and it's eyes start to glow white. White orbs shoot from it's eyes at Sora and others, but what catches my eyes is seeing Clayton fall off the heartless.

The guys look busy with that heartless… I bet my magic can take Clayton since he has no weapon. Clayton tries to run to the exit, but I block his path.

"And what do you want, little girl." Clayton sneers at me.

I glare at him, hating being called 'little girl.' "I want for you to never call me that again. Burn!" A blast of fire slams right into Clayton's chest, propelling him backwards right into the heartless. With a bright light and a shout of NO! from Clayton, both the heartless and Clayton disappear.

"O-oh my… did I just?" I can't believe I just did that.

"Good job Sam, you did it!" Sora congratulates me. How can he congratulate me? He's so innocent, yet he's just fine seeing me do that?

The next thing I know, I'm lifted up into the air and thrown on top of a cliff. Sora, Donald, and Goofy land next to me, and Tarzan climbs up to us.

"Kerchak let you come to home." Tarzan tells us before walking off towards a cave.

"are all these worlds going to be as random as Wonderland and here?" Sora asks as he gets up and pats dust off himself.

"Pretty much, but you'll get used to it soon." Goofy reassures him.

"Let's just follow him. The sooner we do, the sooner we can leave." Donald walks off to the cave. We all follow.

Sora sighs. "I'm starting to think that Riku and Kiari aren't on this world."

"Nor the king." Goofy adds.

"Well if Dan's been on the gummi ship this whole time, then I will make sure to show him the definition of pain."

"Oh yeah, I forgot about Dan, oops." Sora gives off a grin. "Don't worry, one time when we were playing hide and seek, I forgot about him too. He was cramped up in his hiding place for almost the whole day." Sora, Donald, and Goofy all laugh at that.

"So, why are we being led through a waterfall cavern again?" Donald asks.

"I don't know." I say while putting my hand through some of the less rapidly falling water. "And I though you didn't like stupid questions, what a hypocrite." I hear Donald grumbling behind me.

We finally get to the exit of the caverns. "Oh goodness, we finally get to see the gorilla's nesting grounds." Jane surprises us all.

"Whoa, where did you come from?" Sora asks.

"Yeah, what's the big idea? You almost gave me a heart attack." Donald shrieks at her. Hmm, Donald having a heart attack sounds like fun.

"What do you mean?" This time Jane is surprised. "I've been behind you the whole time.

Before anybody could say anything else, I quickly say, "Just forget it. Let's go so we can finally leave." And with that, I quickly run through the exit tunnel.

On the other side, there's some gorillas circling around something. They see me and spread apart to reveal a wounded Dan.

"Dan!" I run over and kneel beside him. He looks horrible with many cuts and bruises and blood covering his body.

"Y-you finally made it." Dan opens his eyes. "It's about time." He tries to lean up, but the pain causes him to fall back down.

"What happened?" It's the only thing I can think of saying.

"Heartless appeared, tried to get to the keyhole." He moans as he points towards the big shiny keyhole on a tree trunk. "I guess I'm not quite ready to fly solo."

"Well that's why you have us." Sora says from behind me.

Donald casts heal on Dan and most of the cuts and bruises disappear, but the blood remains. "But when you are ready, please don't feel like staying.

Dan laughs at that, showing he's feeling better. I grab his hand and help him up, but when I let him go, he sways and leans on me. "Whoa, I feel really dizzy."

"It's probably from the loss of all that blood." I tell him.

"Is that what all that red stuff is?" Sora asks.

"You don't know what blood is?" Dan asks. That's sort of astonishing to us.

"No, what is it?" Sora starts poking the blood stains on Dan's clothes.

"Long story short, we need blood to survive. We die by loosing too much." I say.

Sora looks shocked by that. "That seems like a serious flaw." He looks at Dan worryingly. "Are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah, just go do what ever you did to the first keyhole so we can leave." Dan says. "Uh, I really need a shower." He moans.

Sora walks up to the keyhole, and once again, the key blade forces itself towards the keyhole and a light blue beam connects the blade to hole. A locking sound rings throughout the room. Another gummi piece falls out and Goofy picks it up.

I turn my back from Sora and see… a gorilla cuddling with Donald? "Aah, Donald's got a girlfriend… I think that's a girl." Everyone laughs as Donald shouts about Daisy, his real girlfriend, killing him.

-----

Back on the gummi ship, we were all pretty much back to normal, what with everyone not hating each other as much, except Dan still has blood all over him.

And the fact that I feel really depressed. "What's the matter?" Dan finally decides to ask me. Why does he always know when I feel sad?

"It's just… in that fight with Clayton-"

"Oh yea, Sora told me about that."

"So you know that I- that I… killed him." I feel even worse now after actually saying it.

Dan sighs. "Sam, you didn't kill him-"

"Of course I did!" I say, getting angry at what Dan said. "I killed him with my magic!" Doesn't he understand this?

"No, you didn't. It was the heartless that killed him. Even if you never even fought him, he still would have had his heart eaten away by the darkness, or at least that's what I've heard."

I sigh, There's no arguing with him, might as well act like I feel better. I force a happy grin on my face and say, "Yeah, your right. Come on, let's go back to the others." I walk off to the cock pit.

I over hear Donald as I walk in. "You know, those two gummi pieces that came from the keyholes are different then the others, We should ask Leon in Traverse town about them."

"Awesome, next stop, Traverse Town!" Sora shouts excitedly.

"Not so fast, we still have another world to go to first!" Donald yells back. Sora still looks excited about a new world though.

"Hey." I just remembered something. "We never did find out what that gorilla word Tarzan kept saying meant." Everyone stops and thinks about it.

"Let's just say that it meant 'heart' and let it be." Dan suggests. I wonder how he got that as the answer.

-----

**Please review so that I feel motivated enough to keep writing, and get better at it.**


	5. Chapter 5: Let's Get Ready to Rumble

Disclaimer: I own Dan and Sam… but just wait to see what Sam owns.

Chapter 5: Let's get ready to rumble.

Dan's P.O.V.

"Hey guys, we're at the next world." Sora says excitedly. We all crowd around the window to look at it.

"It looks like a coliseum." I say. "Sounds like fun, let's go." I walk towards the exit, but Sam pulls me back.

"Yeah, I don't think so. You still need to rest." She tells me.

"Sam, I'm fine, look." I start walking around, but in five seconds, I have to stop from the dizziness.

"See? You just go rest. We'll be fine wit Hough you." Sam walks out through the exit. Donald and Goofy follow.

"Sorry." Sora gives me a sad look, but then brightens up again. "I know, I'll go get you a souvenir!"

I just shake my head at him. "Go have fun." I wave him off. Sora exits, and mark off another point in my mind of why older sisters are annoying.

Sora's P.O.V.

We open a pair of huge wooden doors and enter a courtyard with many flaming cauldrons surrounding it. At the other side is a building with many stone columns and two bronze statues that are holding their swords above another pair of wooden doors.

"We must be at a Greek coliseum." Sam says as we head across the yard.

"How do you know that?" I ask her.

"Well. The architecture of this whole place is practically screaming 'We are the Greeks, love us.'" She says sarcastically.

"Then how do you know about this place so much?" I ask.

"Why do you keep asking questions?" She rebuttals. "You know, you'll never get a girlfriend if you keep asking so many questions."

"I don't ask so many questions!" I shout at her. I turn to Donald and Goofy, "Do I?"

They glance around nervously. "Uh… umm… well you uh… Oh look, a goat person!" Goofy points in front of us.

"Cool." I say as we watch a fat hairy man with goat antlers, legs, and tail, walk into the building in front of us. "Let's go talk to him!" I run the rest of the way to the doors and push them open.

Inside is a small room with a few more flaming cauldrons, a random gigantic pedestal, another door. And the goat man cleaning the list of rules for something.

I walk up to the goat man, not sure on what to say. "Uh, excuse me-"

"Oh, you're here, did you bring any Windex?" The goat man asks, still looking away from me.

"Uh, no…" I tell him. Why would I have Windex?

"Fine, fine. I'll get some later. Just move that pedestal." He points to the gigantic pedestal. "We need to get this place ready for the games."

"Okay…" I go over to the pedestal, and with all the strength I can muster, push into it. Nothing happens.

"Leave it to the girl to do the heavy lifting." Sam appears out of no where and knocks me away. "What a weakling." She starts pushing on the pedestal, but it still won't move. Finally, she gives up. "Stupid piece of rock! You weigh more than my purse!"

"And you say I'm weak." I snicker. "I'll just tell the goat man that he's crazy." I walk over to the goat, who is still wiping away at the list. "It's too heavy." I tell him.

He freezes and turns around. "Too heavy? Since when has…" He looks down at me. "Oh, wrong guy. Well what are you doing here?"

"Uh, well…" Why are we here? I look towards the others for help.

"We want to compete in the games." Sam answers for me.

"What! You?!" He laughs at us. "Yeah right, you have to be a hero to compete."

"Hey, I am a hero!" I argue back.

"Yeah, this here is the key blade master." Goofy walks up and puts his hands on my shoulders ina creepy sort of fashion.

"I only have two words for you." He raises two fingers. "No freaking way."

"But that's three words!" Sam argues.

"Why you little-" He stops in mid sentence as he stares at Sam. He just keeps staring at her. Finally, he straightens up and says, "Just take this thunder spell and leave me alone."

Sam's P.O.V.

Outside, Sora and I are testing out our thunder spells by trying to hit Dan's now-dead-Ipod.

"So what do you think was up with Phil?" Sora asks. He asked for the goat man's name before we left, even though I already know it, considering this world is based off of 'Hercules.'

"Thunder! I don't know. Maybe he's some sort of obvious pedophile. It was really creepy to be stared at by him…" I shudder at the thought of it.

"Maybe he has a crush on you." Donald chuckles.

"Thunder!" Donald gets zapped by a bolt. "Oops, sorry Donald." I give off a big grin towards him.

"Thunder! Hey, I hit it!" Sora shouts.

"Sweet!" I run over to the Ipod and pick it up. "Awesome, it's fully charged now." I turn around and almost drop the Ipod from fright. Standing right next to Sora is Hades. The god of the underworld.

"Such a stiff goat, isn't he." Hades comments.

"What's it to you?" I question him.

"Whoa Nelly, calm down. I just think it's a little unfair that you can't compete."

"Who are you?" Sora asks.

"Hades. Lord of the dead. And look what I have here." He holds up his hand and a ticket appears in his grasp. "Here, go knock yourselves out."

"I bet you'd like that wouldn't you." I glare at him. He looks at me and shrugs, then he disappears, leaving a big cloud of smoke in his place.

"Why would you say something like that to him if he just gave us this?" He asks, waving the ticket in his hand.

I sigh. "He's the lord of the dead, Sora. Don't you think he'd be quite happy to have us die?"

"Uh, well… do you really think we can die by competing?"

"Of course not, we're too awesome. But I doubt Hades will play by the rules…"

"What! Where'd you get that from!?" Phil shouts out in surprise.

"So we can be in the games, right?" Sora asks.

Phil looks like he'd love to just say no, but instead he says, "Fine, just sign this." He hands me a registration form.

I look at the form, then read it out loud:

This hereby states that the participant of these games agree to give all proceeds and rights to the trainer. These include endorsement fees, vehicle sponsorships, fast-food tie-ins, use of likeness rights, talk show deals, print rights, including books, comics, and graffiti, movie deals, game rights, and of course, if the participant is to die, then everything he/she owns would now become the trainer's. I read that last part to myself a couple times.

"Wait, what do you mean by die? Sora asks nervously. He's probably thinking about Hades right now too.

"Don't worry about that. Many years ago, contestants could die, but the crowd didn't like it so we removed it. Just get you and your trainer to sign that form." Phil says.

"And would you happen to be that trainer?" I ask him.

"What? Of course not, I already have a guy to train. You're the trainer." He points to me.

I Look behind me, expecting some great trainer to be there, but there isn't. "Wait, you mean me?" Phil nods his head. "But… I can't be a trainer. How am I supposed to…" Wait, this could come as an advantage. Being a trainer makes me practically own Sora… "Okay, I'll do it!" I sign on the trainer's line.

"Thanks Sam!" Sora signs on the participant line.

"Wait a second, what if I don't want to do this?" Donald asks.

"You can't anyways." Phil answers. "We can only have one participant at a time. Ever since that fifty man armada won that tournament…"

"I still don't like this. If Sora dies, then how are we supposed to follow the key bearer?" Donald asks.

"Oh, don't be so grumpy Donald, I bet Sora will do fine." Goofy assures him.

"Right." I say. "SO, since there's no more questions, let's get the preliminaries done."

"I have a questi-" Everyone starts.

"No more questions!" Everyone flinches away from me.

Sora's P.O.V.

"Combo, dodge roll to the right, jump up and do a combo…" Sam tells me as I do what she says. I'm surprised that she actually knows what she's doing.

"Guard and combo." I quickly raise the key blade to block a soldier heartless' attack and combo it. It disappears.

"Nice work Sora, we only need to go through one more match now." Sam tell me.

"Who's this we? Your not even fighting." Donald says.

"Hey, trainers don't fight, they tell you how to fight!" Sam argues. "Besides, your not fighting either."

"So that's who I'm fighting now?" I change the subject. Sam looks at where I'm pointing and shows a confused face.

"Wait, he's not from here is he?" She asks.

"Of course not. The only fighter from this world is Her4cules." Phil tells us.

"Wait, you know about the different worlds?" I asked, shocked by this.

"Yeah, fighters from everywhere come here to compete. Cloud over there has been traveling to many worlds. He'll be a tough fight for you guys."

"You can do it, right Sora?" Sam asks me.

"Of course I can. I'm the key blade master after all." I grin at her.

"Don't be over confident or you'll lose!" She shouts at me.

Cloud and I walk onto the arena. He looks at me with… what is that, pity? Then he grabs his hilt and pulls out a huge sword with cloth strips or something wrapped around parts of it.

"Sora!" Sam shouts. "You'll have to dodge his attacks by yourself until I know his attack patterns!"

"You will have lost by then." Cloud says, With lightning speed, he charges at me. I barely dodge roll out of the way, but then he attacks again, hitting me square in the chest.

I quickly dodge roll to a safe distance and cast cure on myself. Cloud jumps up real high and forces me to jump out of the way as he grounds his sword into the ground.

Him being defenseless, I quickly try to combo him, but he quickly pulls his sword out and slashes at me, pushing me away. Before I can charge again, Cloud charges himself, causing me to roll out of the way.

Cloud charges again and I begin to move, but Sam shouts, "Guard!" I quickly block the attack, causing Cloud to have his sword ricocheted away. "Combo!" Sam shouts, and I do, finally hitting him.

Cloud staggers back, but then smirks. "You never stood a chance." He says, and reddish streaks of electricity fly off of him as he jumps and floats above the ground.

"T-that doesn't look good." I say, backing away. Cloud flies off at me, and swings his sword, slashing me. He flies off again, and comes back, hitting me even harder. I can't even try to doge his attacks as he comes back, always hitting harder. Finally, he comes back down to the ground.

He looks at me as I pant hard, holding my side. Where he hit me. "No, I-I can't lose…"

Sam's P.O.V.

I watch as Sora falls to the ground. He didn't even try to dodge Cloud! I am so going to kick his as when he wakes up.

Cloud walks towards Sora, swords till raised. "What is he- What are you doing?!" I shout at him. He stops in front of Sora and raises his sword. "Stop! You've already won!"

"What are you doing?~ There's no killing in matches!" Phil shouts. Cloud brings his sword down and I close my eyes…

"Huh?" I open my eyes after hearing the clang of metal against stone. Cloud had brought his sword to the ground next to Sora. He picks the sword up and looks at Sora with pity.

Then I scream as a giant black paw lands on Cloud, crushing him. I scream even louder as the three heads of the dog get ready to strike at the unconscious Sora.

`Just as the heads strike down, a guy in a gladiator outfit charges at the dog and pushes it away.

"Phil, get these guys out of here!" The gladiator shouts. Goofy and I quickly get Sora and run away with Donald and Phil.

Sora's P.O.V.

I hear really loud noises, but I don't want to get up yet. I was having such ag reat dream… But wait, I just lost in a battle.

I sit up and rub my eyes. I feel bruised all over. "Sora your awake!" Sam shouts.

"Uh, yeah I- ouch!" Sam pushes me back onto the ground. "What was that for!"

"You idiot! You almost died out there!" She shouts.

"I-I what!" I jump up and summon my key blade.

"Calm down, your safe now." Donald says.

"I wouldn't be so sure." Phil says nervously. "That Cerberus, he can be tough. I hope Hercules can deal with him."

"Who's Hercules." I ask Phil.

"He's the only true hero on this world." Phil says encouragingly, but then he looks at the arena entrance and sighs. "I hope he can handle this."

"Gawsh, maybe we should help him." Goofy suggests.

"What! You guys can't possibly take on Cerberus. He's way too much for non-heroes to handle." Phil insists.

"But if we don't do this, how can we show we are heroes?" I ask. Phil strokes his chin hair, pondering this. "Don't worry, have I ever let some one down?" I give a big grin.

"You just let me down earlier." Sam says casually. I grimace at that.

"Other than her, I haven't then." I say defensively.

"What about when you crashed the ship?" Donald says.

"Yeah, or the fact that your just some kid with a key instead of a macho man." Goofy adds

"Or how-"

"Okay, I get it!" I shout out. "Sheesh, some help you guys are! I'll just go take out Cerberus myself then!" I stomp to the doors and go through it.

"Wrong door." Sam points out.

"I know that!" I slam the door and run through the other one.

"Think we should help?" Goofy asks.

"Yeah, I guess." Donald sighs.

"Come on, wake up already." Hercules pleads while pushing back Cerberus. Even with his super strength, he's still having trouble defeating the dog while protecting the unconscious Cloud.

"Don't worry, we can take it from here." Hercules looks behind him to see Sam, Donald, and Goofy in positions to attack.

"Wasn't there another person with you?" Herc asks. His voice is strained from blocking off Cerberus.

"He's on Cerberus's back." Sam answers. "Once you let go, Sora will cast thunder on the three heads, giving you enough time to escape with Cloud. Are you ready?" Herc nods his head. "Great, and… NOW!" Herc punches the middle head and quickly runs away with Cloud slung over his back as Sora casts thunder on the three heads.

"Well great." Donald comments. "Those two are safe, but what about US!?

"We have to take this guy down first." Goofy says, pointing his shield at Cerberus.

"Guys, look out!" Sam pushes Donald and Goofy out of the way of a gigantic fireball that came from one of the heads.

"When is Sora going to start attacking already!?" Donald shouts.

"I told him to attack where we aren't attacking. That way he'd be in pain in more than one area." Sam says, and then casts thunder on the heads.

"Well what else can he possibly hit-" A loud noise between a high pitched whiny sound and a howl comes from all three of the heads as Cerberus falls to the ground, writhing in pain.

"I think he found a spot." Sam says as Sora runs up to them. "What did you do Sora?

"Ugh… let's just say that he won't be having any puppies." We all grimace at that.

"I now dub thee junior heroes for the heroics that you have shown." Phil announces to us.

"Hey, what do you mean by junior heroes?" Donald demands.

"You ain't got what it takes to be a true hero." Phil answers.

"Well, than what do we need?" I ask.

"You'll have to find that on your own." Herc says encouragingly.

"Too bad Sora's not hat great at finding things." Sam muses.

"Why can't you just be nice to me?" I glare at her. "I defeated Cerberus, Didn't I?"

"Don't worry kid, she'll probably never appreciate anyone." Phil remarks.

"Well, sorry for doing my job." Sam argues.

"Sora, I think it's time to go." Donald says.

"Huh? But what about the games?" I ask.

"No way can we hold the games now." Phil answers. "Come back later after we get the stadium cleaned up."

"Okay, we'll be there." Donald, Goofy, Sam and I walk out the doors into the front area.

While walking to the gummi ship, I remember that I didn't find a souvenir for Dan. Before I think of something though, I notice Cloud sitting on the steps in front of the exit doors.

"Hey, are you all right?" I ask him as we get close enough to him.

Cloud raises his head and stares at me for a while before finally muttering, "Yeah."

"So why did you go along with him, anyway?" I ask. I heard how Hades hired Cloud as an assassin.

He puts his head on his hands and answers, "I'm looking for someone. Hades promised to help." Cloud stand sup. "I tried to exploit the power of darkness, but it backfired. I fell into darkness, and I couldn't find the light." He looks up into the sky, as if a ray of light would shine down.

"You'll find it." I tell him. "I'm searching too."

Cloud stares at me, as if trying to figure me out, then asks, "For your light?" I nod my head. Cloud walks by me and hands me a trinket, saying, "Don't lose sight of it." He then walks back towards the arena.

I turn back to him and shout, "How about a rematch some time? Fair and square, no dark powers involved."

Cloud stops and brushes a hair from his face, saying, "I think I'll pass." before continuing his walking.

I look down at the trinket in my hand and give off a huge smile. I bet Dan would like this. I then lose my smile when Sam says, "Ooh, you just got denied."

Dan's P.O.V.

"You what!" After Sora and the others got back, they told me what happened up to facing Cloud when I interrupt them.

Sora stops in mid sentence after hearing me shout and asks with a confused look, "Yeah, do you know him?" "Know him?" I scoff. "He's one of the greatest warriors in like… ever! I can't believe I missed fighting against him." I moan, putting my face in my hands.

"Uh, well…" Sora searches through his pockets and pulls out a trinket. "Here, Cloud gave this to me." He holds out his hand to me, and I quickly snatch it away before he changes his mind.

"Cloud really gave this to you? Why?" I ask while examining it.

"Maybe it was a make up gift for trying to kill Sora." Sam says, irritably.

"What! Why'd he do that!?" I shout.

"Don't blame him, Hades was using Cloud." Sora defends.

"Hades? That dirty bastard. "I mutter. I pocket the trinket before changing the subject, "So did you find another keyhole?"

Sora shows a surprised expression before answering, "No, I didn't." He then goes back to a grin and says, "I guess that's another reason to go back and play in the games."

"Well, we need to do something else before leaving Traverse Town." I tell them.

"Huh? What's that?" Sam asks me.

I grimace before answering, "Shopping."

AN: please don't think that Sam actually has the right to own Sora.

Please review, I feel like I'm sucking this story up, so even constructive criticism is welcome… just no flaming.


	6. Chapter 6: Careless Confusion

"Shopping, shopping, shopping, shopping…" Sam excitedly chants.

"Why do you need to go shopping?" Sora asks me while ignoring Sam.

"I don't feel like going to any worlds wearing bloodstained clothes." I answer. "Besides, I don't like my sister wearing short shorts and a tank top the whole time."

"Yeah… why is she wearing those?" Donald asks while driving the ship.

"Before we were sent to Traverse Town, we were at band camp. It's really hot and we have to stay their for most of the day. You can imagine why people don't show much affection towards covering themselves up." I explain.

"Hey, wait a second." Sam finally stops her chanting. "We don't have any money. How are we supposed to shop if we're broke?"

I answer her by holding up a bulging bag. "Apparently, heartless take a liking for shiny things."

Sam runs up, grabs the bag, and looks inside it. "Holy shit, we're rich!"

"Let me see that." Sora grabs the bag and looks inside it. "Rich? Far from it. You only have five thousand munny." He gives the bag back to me.

"Well, it should be sufficient enough to buy clothes." I say while putting the bag in my pocket.

"You'll find out soon." Donald turns around the pilot seat. "We're here."

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"Have fun shopping. Donald, Goofy and I will try to find Leon for those gummi pieces." Sora, Donald and Goofy go off towards the second district.

As soon as they disappear, Sam shouts, "So where to first? Aeropostale, Hollister… Old Navy?" She looks around, trying to find a familiar clothing brand store.

"Sam, I don't think they have those kinds of stores." I say.

An intercom turns on after I say that and a voice announces, "Shoppers, our new Super, Ultra Walmart is proud to say that everything is fifty percent off on it's opening day today!"

"Even here." I mutter before heading off for it.

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"How are we supposed to get through these bars?" Donald asks. After finding Yuffie, she told us that Leon was in a water cavern that's supposedly behind these bars.

"Well their has to be some kind of switch to move them. How else does Leon get in?" I start moving my hands on the wall to find a hidden switch.

"Hey, I got an idea." Goofy whacks the bars as hard as he can with his shield. Nothing happens though.

"I think we need to hit it with something harder." I say, giving up on finding a switch.

"The only thing harder than his shield is his head." Donald muses.

"Hey, good idea." Goofy runs head first in to the bars, causing them to break apart.

"Well… that worked, I guess." I mutter.

Donald, Goofy and I swim through the cave until we reach some land, where Leon is practicing and Aerith is watching.

"Leon stops when he notices us. "Oh hey, it's… who are you again?"

Aerith smacks him in the back of his head. "You idiot, Squall, it's-"

"Leon!" Leon interrupts.

Aerith rolls her eyes. "It's the key blade boy, grumpy duck and idiotic dog-"

"Goof!" Goofy interrupts.

"Okay, what is this, interrupt Aerith day-"

"Aeris!" Leon interrupts.

Aerith smacks him in the back of the head again. "Look, have you found any keyholes or not!" She glares at me.

"Umm…" I think a bit before answering, "Well, I have to keep unlocking a stupid keyhole on Sam's diary, but I don't think-ow!" Aerith slaps me in the back of the head.

"No, you idiot! A huge keyhole that is always blocked off by some ginormous heartless!"

"Oh yeah, they key blade would look them automatically.""Every world among the stars has a keyhole, and each one leads to the heart of that world." Leon explains in the most boring way possible. "There must be one in this town as well.""Well, you did just say there is one in every single world." Donald says.

"The heartless enter through the keyhole and do something to the world's core." Leon continues to drone on.

I try to picture what that 'something' could be, but just ask, "What happens to the world?"

"It explodes! Like big fireworks, yeah?" Aerith cheers.

"Cool." Donald, Goofy and I say.

"No, not cool!" Leon yells out. "The world and everyone on it disappears! That's why your key is so important."

"So go lock those holes, you're the only one who can." Aerith tells me.

"I don't know…" I say.

"We'll pay you." Aerith offers.

"Deal, and guess what? I've already locked ten of them." I say excitedly.

"But Sora, I thought you only locked two." Goofy points out.

"Dang it Goofy, I was going to get rich too!"

"Here, have a ripped up book I'm supposed to give to an old magician for Cid, and…" Leon picks up a random rock from the ground." Have this good luck charm too."

"Aw, my salary sucks! Where's the anti child labor abuse people when you need them?" I start heading back to the water.

"Uh, you realize you can just use those stairs, right?" Leon points to the stairs behind him.

"Dang it, Yuffie!"

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"Shoes! Shirts! Makeup!" I shout, running to all of the different stalls.

"You don't think that we can afford all of this, do you?" Dan asks, walking up to me.

"Yes I do." I give off an evil grin, showing Dan a bulging bag of munny.

"Where'd you get that from?" He asks, raising an eyebrow.

"I pick pocketed Donald." I answer in a sweet voice.

"Donald doesn't have any pockets. He doesn't even have pants." Dan thinks for a second. "Where does he even hold all of those potions and ethers?"

"Where he keeps this of course, now let's go on a shopping spree!" I notice another stall. "Jewelry!" I run over and look through the supplies. "Way better than the crap Cid has." I hold up a pretty necklace.

"Hey, I heard that!" Cid walks up and yanks the necklace out of my hands. "I told you, my accessories are for fighters, not for some little girly girls." He throws the necklace back onto the stall.

"So what are you doing at this stall then?" Dan asks.

"I-er-uh, Aerith forced me to buy her some of this junk." Cid stutters.

I laugh at Cid as Dan smirks, putting his hands into his pockets, only to curse as he brings out the gummi pieces he was supposed to give to Sora. "You idiot, how is Sora supposed to find out what those things do if he doesn't even have them!" I shout at Dan.

"Well, he's probably already forgotten about it." Dan says.

It was Cid's turn to start laughing now. "You call yourselves space travelers and you don't even know what a navi gummi piece is?" He's laughing so hard that if he was a kid, he'd be rolling on the floor.

"Hey, we're not the technicians! We're the hitchhikers! I shout at him as Dan mutters, "Well we do now."

Cid gives an angry look, then, and shouts back, "Driver or hiker, you should still know about what your inside!"By this time, a whole crowd of shoppers have stopped and formed a circle around the three of us. Some of them even start chanting, "Fight, fight, fight."

"Hey, don't you all have anything better to do in a Walmart?" Dan irritably asks. Most of the shoppers ignore him while others just shake their heads.

"Fine by me!" I tell him. "I've been wanting to punch this guy for awhile now.""Oh, I'm so glad hitting girls is okay now." Cid gets into a fighting stance.

Dan sighs, "Fine, but if Sam wins, you install those gummi pieces."

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Up the stairs, we find an empty room. The walls and floor are made of stone slabs, and there is a circular area in the middle that is higher than the floor.

"Hey, where'd my big bulging bag of munny go!" Donald suddenly shots out.

"What big bulging bag of munny?" Goofy asks Donald.

"The one I was hiding from- er-holding incase of emergency." Donald quickly fixes himself.

"But you don't have any pockets. You don't even have pants." I add. "By the way, where do you carry your potions and ethers?"

Where I keep my big bulging bag of munny, of course!" Donald answers.

"So… they're lost too?" Goofy asks.

"No, I still have them!" Donald yells back.

I ignore them once I notice Kiari looking interestingly at the wall.

"Wow, this place is really dusty… Sora you should clean this!" She shows a finger covered with a lot of dust. "This place sort of remind me of the secret place back on the island, though. Not sure why since it's dusty, made of some kind of cement and doesn't have a huge wooden door that won't open. Oh well…"

"Sora! Are you having crazy illusions of your girlfriend again?" I snap back to attention as Donald yells at me.

"Gwarsh, maybe we should have him checked." Goofy tries, but fails, to whisper to Donald. "For all we know, he could go crazy, or worse."

"What's worse than going crazy?" Donald asks.

"I don't know, I thought it just sounded better.""Look out, a tall heartless in a wizard's robe!" I shriek, pointing behind them.

Donald and Goofy turn around and raise their weapons, but the 'heartless' quickly shouts, "Stopga!"

Then it's like we're frozen, except it's not cold. The wizard quickly shouts in one breath, "I am not a heartless. I'm Merlin, a wizard, and am hired by the King to teach you magic." He stops to catch his breath and looks at us. "Well, aren't you going to say something? Oh… the stop is still active isn't it. Well, I guess I'll just have some tea then."

After an hour of Merlin cleaning, moving in and torturing us with his grandchildren's pictures and stories, we finally are able to move again.

"Ah good." Merlin says as we start stretching out our muscles. "So, do you have any questions to ask me?"

"Yeah, why do you have over one hundred grandkids?"

"Er-well, how about you talk to the fairy godmother." Merlin pushes the three of us towards an extremely small carriage.

"What? Did you hit your head or something-" Donald stops when the carriage start glowing and transforms into an old woman wearing a blue robe. "Ah great, another old blue robed freak."

"Ah, you must be Sora." The fairy godmother says. She rummages through a huge purse before bringing out a long wand. "Ah, here we go." She puts the wand in her ear, like a pencil, then grabs her purse and whacks Donald. "Now then, it seems you have a summon stone with you."

"Summoning stone? Oh, you mean this thing?" I hold out the rock that Leon gave me.

"Yes, that is it. Here, let me activate it for you." She raises her hands into the air. "Bippity… Boppity… Boo!" She puts her hands down and spits on the rock. "There, now you can summon this creature who has lost his world."

"Uh, thanks… I guess." I wipe my hand against my clothes and pocket the rock.

"Well, all that's left now is for me to finally get my book back from Cid." Merlin tells us.

"Oh, you mean this book?" I pull out the book Leon gave me.

"What! I told Cid to personally bring it to me!" Merlin snatches the brook from me and places it on a stand. "D not touch that book while I'm gone to deal with Cid."

"Oh, don't worry, we'll be fine." I wave as Merlin leaves the house.

"You're going to look at the book, aren't you." Donald grumbles.

"You know me too well." I grin.

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"Come on, you fight like a girl!" Cid punch Sam in the head.

"You idiot, I AM a girl!" Sam retaliates by kicking cid in the crotch. "And now, you're part girl too!"

"Come on, Sam. Stop fooling around and knock him out already!" I shout at her before almost toppling over. "Whoa, still a little dizzy."

"Yeah, yeah. What's the fun of a fight with no fun?" Sam says while putting Cid in a headlock.

"There isn't any, but you've never even been in a fist fight before."

"Hey! Will you kids quit yapping and-" Cid begins.

"Cid!" A booming voice shrieks throughout the store, making Cid stop struggling.

"OH shi-let me go! Let go of me!" Cid shouts, showing a horrified face.

"What's wrong? Your mommy coming after you?" Sam says in a mocking way.

"No, even worse!" Cid shouts as a strong gale suddenly goes throughout the store. The shoppers instantly stop yelling, "Fight!" and quickly run away.

"Cid! I paid you five hundred munny to fix that book! Why are there missing pages!" From out of the gale storm appears Merlin, who has a huge pitchfork pointed right at Cid's head.

"Th-they were never there to begin with!" Cid shouts over the loud wind. "How can I fix something that's not there!"

The wind abruptly stops and Merlin lowers the pitchfork. "Why, I guess you're right. Silly me, I didn't even notice any missing pages." Merlin disappears as quickly as he had appeared.

"Th-thank you." Cid says before passing out.

"Umm, does that mean I win?" Sam asks, dropping Cid to the floor.

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"Are you sure this looks good on me?" I ask as I straighten my jacket. No matter what I picked out, Sam would disagree with it. Finally, she picked me out some clothes herself. I ended up wearing dark blue baggy jeans with a belt because they were falling down on me, a plain black shirt and a brown jean jacket.

"Of course, are you really asking that to such a fashionable person as me?" She gloats. She decided to go with a simple blue shirt with a red stripe going down the front, short jean shorts, which I disagree with completely, and of course, several bracelets on he wrists. I'm not quite sure if she has realized that they have concealed blades in them. "Now if I can figure out how to make this big stick look good." I forced her to buy a wooden pole for a weapon. I don't trust her with anything sharp (someone could get hurt, like me), but I let her buy the bracelets just incase.

"As long as you don't cover it in pink frills and glitter, then do whatever."

"Shut up, I hate anything pink and glittery!" Sam and I walk into the third district where, what we heard from Yuffie, Sora should be at. How does she know this anyways? Does she stalk us or something? Oh well, she invited us to her house after we Find Sora.

"Yuffie said to heard for a door with fire on it." I say while looking around.

"Maybe she's talking about that burning door." Sam points to a door that is literally on fire.

"No… I think it's the door that has a glowing fire symbol on it." I point to another door that Sora, Donald and Goofy are coming out of.

"Oh, hey guys!" Sora shouts while running up to us. "You'll never believe what happened! I fell into a book and found Pooh!"

Sam and I stare at him with confused looks. "You found poo in a book?" Sam asks him.

"Yeah and then we started talking together. Pooh really likes honey."

"Poo and honey?" I ask. "Wait, you're talking about Pooh Bear?"

"Yeah, wait, how do you know about Pooh?" He asks me.

"Uh, because I had a book about Pooh back home." I say. It is the truth really.

"Oh. So yeah, then he was thinking and I asked why and…" My attention diverts to a black blob on the ground behind Sora. It rises into a shadow heartless and heads right for him.

"Sor-" I step on Sam's foot, shutting her up as Sora continues with his story. A flicker of movement catches Sam's eyes as well.

Just as the heartless jumps towards Sora, a boy with silver hair rushes in, killing it in one hit. "Huh?" Sora turns around to see the boy posed with his strangely shaped and colored sword in his outstretched arm.

"R-riku!" Sora pounces on the boy, pinching his cheeks. "I'm not dreaming this time, right?"

"Hope not. Took forever to find you. So where's Kiari?" He looks around as if she's behind one of us.

"You mean she's not with you?" Sora shows concern now.

"Well don't worry, I'm sure she made it off the island too." Riku waves it off. "We'll all be together again soon." Another shadow heartless forms, this time behind Riku, and once again, I have to step on Sam's shoe to stop her from shouting. "Just leave everything to me. I know this-" Sora dashes and slams the key blade into the shadow, killing it, before Riku even understands what is happening. "Sora." He says in shock. "What did you-"

"Leave it to who?" Sora gives off a smirk.

"Sora, what did you-" Riku tries again.

"I've been looking for you and Kiari, too, with their help."

"Since when?" Sam whispers to me. I silence her with my elbow.

"Who are they?" Riku finally notices our existence.

Donald clears his throat. "My name is-"

"We've visited so many places and worlds, looking for you." Sora interrupts.

"Really? Well, what do you know?" Riku says, brings his attention solely on Sora again.

"A lot." Sam shouts before I can stop her. Riku gives her a glare and she responds with, "What? That's the most stupid question in the world."

"Oh." Goofy decides to change the subject. "And guess what? Sora's the key blade master."

"Who would've though it." Donald adds.

"Hey, what's that mean!" Sora shouts at him. "So, this is called a key blade?" Riku holds out and investigates Sora's weapon. Wait, when did he grab that?

"Huh?" Sora looks at his hand, probably thinking the same thing. "Hey, give it back." Sora lunges at Riku, but misses, almost falling on the ground.

"Catch." Riku tosses the blade back and Sora catches it.

"Okay, so you're coming with us, right? We've got this awesome rocket. Wait till you see it!" Sora, himself, starts getting excited.

"No, he can't come!" Donald shouts.

"What? How come?" Sora asks defiantly.

"I can barely relax having you around, not to mention those two you've forced me to bring!" Uh oh, that's not good. Don't bring me into this mess.

"Oh, come on! He's my friend!"

"I don't care!"

"He's gone!" Goofy brings our attention back to the spot where Riku was.

"Riku?" Sora looks around and then sighs. "Nice going. Oh well, at least he's okay. And who knows? Maybe we'll fun into Kiari son, too."

"Way to be optimistic." I slap Sora on the back even though it feels like it's because of Sam and me that Riku's gone.

"So now what?" Sora asks.

"We're invited to Yuffie and the gang's house." I say, pointing to a door near the entrance to the second district.

"Great." Sora yawns. "I'm getting tired."

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"You see? It's just as I told you. While you toiled away trying to find your dear friend, he quite simply replaced you with some new companions." Riku and the black robed witch, Maleficent, watch Sora fail at juggling some apples in front of Donald, Goofy, Dan and Sam.

"Evidently, now he values them far more than he values you." Maleficent says. "You're better off without that wretched boy." Sora throws three apples up and they all bounce on his head as the other four start laughing. "Now, think no more of him, and come with me. I'll help you find what you're searching for."

"But, it won't be the same." Riku finally speaks up.

"you have another boy though." She says.

"You mean 'him?'" Riku sneers. "It's plain obvious that he's just trying to use you. Besides," He adds, "He's too old, and what's with his hair? Is he afraid of a razor or something?"

Maleficent, giving up for now, says, "Fine, fine dear. Just remember who truly cares about you." She puts her hand on Riku's shoulder.

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"Come on Dan, it's your turn." Sora encourages Dan.

"What! No way, you're crazy!" Dan shouts while backing away from Sora, Donald and goofy, who in return, were walking up to him with huge grins on their faces.

"Guys, leave him alone. He doesn't want to do it." I say while laughing.

"Okay, would you rather do it?" Sora asks.

I quit laughing and look the other way. "He's all yours."

Donald and Goofy grab Dan from both sides, pining him to the wall as Sora grabs the pad. "You know, it's your fault we only have a unicorn-with-a-rainbow fake tattoo left." Sora comments.

"No it's not, Donald took all of the fire fake tattoos!"

"Tough, now hold still. I'm trying to put this on your forehead." Sora tries to put the pad on Dan's head as he continuously shakes it

"Come on, I'll look like an idiot!" Dan shouts.

"Hey, I'm the one with Hello Kitty on my arm, so just-" a loud crashing along with the dong of a bell interrupts Sora. "What was that?"

"Sounds like the bell on top of the gizmo shop. How about you go check it out?" Leon says. "try ringing the bell three times."

"Great, let's go!" Dan escapes Donald and Goofy's grasp and heads for the door.

"Yeah, I guess." Sora mutters before running up to Dan and slapping the tattoo onto the back of his neck.

"No!" Dan shrieks as we all laugh while he tries to pull it off.

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"So… the bell is behind this wall?" After battling heartless for about five hours, we finally got to the roof of the gizmo shop to find a wooden wall blocking our way.

"Don't worry, I know how to handle this!" goofy bashes his head against the wall, leaving a hole where his head is now stuck.

"umm, I have a better idea." I cast blizzard along the wood where it is touching stone. I then bash at it with the hilt of my sword, causing it to splinter away and fall… onto goof's head.

"Gwarsh, it's a good thing I have a hard head." Goofy says while getting up.

"Yeah, too bad there's nothing for that head to protect." Donald grumbles.

"So here's the bell, now what?" Sora asks.

"Well, Leon said to pull the rope three times, which seems to exact to me." I ponder that, but Sora instantly pulls the rope, ringing the bell three times.

That's when the ground starts shaking. "What's going on?" Sam asks.

"Look." Goofy points to a fountain on the other side of the district. The wall behind the fountain was slowly moving to reveal a keyhole.

"Looks like this world won't be exploding like fireworks." Sora says before jumping off the building with Donald and Goofy.

Sam and I look at each other before she mutters, "Boys," and then jumps off the roof as well.

"Thanks for comparing him to me!" I shout. Of course, she doesn't hear me. I step up to the edge of the roof and look down at the four as they reached the keyhole. If only I could just fly down there. It would be so much easier.

"Who are you anyways?" Riku's voice makes me jump, almost falling off the ledge.

"Huh?" I'm to shocked to even think of a word to say. How did he get here so quietly? Why does he want to know who I am? Why am I thinking of questions and not asking them? Hmm, I guess I'm not too shocked to think of a word to say.

"You heard me, who are you?" He looks angry, as if it's a bad thing that I'm here. "Better yet," He walks up right into my face. "Who do you think you are?" He stabs me in the chest with his finger.

"Look, I don't want to cause any trouble-"I try to say.

"Cause trouble? Of course not, anything but that."

"Look," I say, getting irritated now. "My sister and I just want to go back to our own world. We're hoping to eventually find it by traveling with Sora. Why don't you come with us? Sora really misses you."

"I don't need you guys. I can find Kiari all by myself." Riku folds his arms to his chest.

"What? Are you serious. Look, just come and-"

"Dan!" Sam's shout diverts me to a rampaging battle going on below. The others are being attacked by a giant armor… again.

I look back to talk to Riku, but once again, he's gone. "I'm not sure what I hate more." I mutter. "Riku himself or the way he magically disappears." Instead of choosing one, I quickly leap off the building, doing a back flip just for the fun of it, before landing on the ground.

"Well you took your damn time!" Sam shouts as she smacks the hand of the giant heartless away with her pole.

"Sorry, I was held back by something." I say as I join the battle.

"Well, how about you make it up to us by killing it." Sam challenges me.

I smirk. "Sure thing." I unsheathe my sword and run towards the armor. The armor, which is actually floating in the air somehow, flies at me, making me roll out of the way. Sam jumps from behind the armor and smacks the head with her pole while Sora does a combo attack to one of the feet, destroying it.

I cast a blizzard spell on one of the hands, encasing it in ice, then cast lightning on it, cracking the hand into pieces. It's a good thing that Sam taught m that spell.

With two limbs missing, the armor moves it's body into a shape resembling a cannon. A blue aura of energy crackles as the cannon aims at Sora. A huge blast of the energy shoots out, but Sora quickly jumps over it and casts a thunder spell on the heartless.

The cannon then decides to point at me, but I'm already running at it. With a quick leap, I land on top of the heartless and hold onto it's head as it tries to buck me off. The heartless shoots it's energy blasts everywhere as I barely manage to stay on, one arm around the head, the other holding my sword.

"Guys." I shout. "Hit the two limbs on the count of three."

"Gotcha." Sora says as everyone else gets ready.

"One!" I grip my sword tightly. "Two!" The others start running towards the cannon. "Three!" Goofy throws his shield at the arm as Donald casts fire on it while Sora and Sam attack the leg. I quickly grip my sword with both hands and stab it into the head before falling off.

I get up and look at the heartless to find there is only it's torso left, but it starts to fade away as well, with a big blue heart floating away.

"Sora, go lock the keyhole." Donald instructs him. Sora obliges and walks up to the fountain. He points his key blade at the shining keyhole and a beam of light connects the two as we hear a loud clicking sound and then the keyhole fades out.

"So." Sora says, turning to me. "Do you think through a plan to kill these heartless or do you just make it up as you go along?"

"Honestly," I answer, "it's a little bit of both." I smirk

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"Ah, finally some rest." I say, plopping down on the hotel bed.

"I've been resting all day while you were off with Sora having an adventure." Dan fumes while staring at the mirror intently.

"Well that's your fault for being in the wrong place at the wrong time." I say. "What's with you anyways?" I ask while sitting up. "Thinking about something?"

"There is a lot of things that happened today. Many of them go way over my though process."

"Like what?" I say, starting to get interested. My brother never talks about things being to confusing for him."

"Well like… We've never even held a weapon before, yet we both somehow are able to easily defend ourselves."

"Maybe we're just naturally talented." With all the weird things happening, this is the one he's interested in?" I'm more interested in why these people never shed blood when hit." I tell him.

"Well actually, I've been forming a hypothesis about that." Dan surprises me by saying. "Because of the fact that Sora doesn't know what blood is, I think no one here has blood."

"What? That's impossible, they need blood to live."

"They have something flowing in their veins, don't get me wrong, it's just something else that's not in a liquid form."

"What is it in then, solid form?"

Dan shrugs his shoulders and turns around. "This is all on speculation. I could be completely wrong, but I think that could be the answer."

"Yeah well… you could be right." I say, too tired to think of something else. "Come on, let's go to bed. We need to be well rested for what ever gets in our way tomorrow."

"Yeah, night." Dan says, staring at the mirror again before finally turning off the lights.


	7. Chapter 7: Deserted in the desert

"Well, this is strange." I say. It's not ever day that you get stuck in quicksand. It just so happens that today is that day.

"It's your fault for being an idiot!" Dan shouts at me. He is also stuck with me in the sand, along with Aladdin.

"Hey Al-you! Stop squirming. You'll just get pushed down more." I shout, but Aladdin pays no attention.

"Sora, watch it. That heartless almost got me!" Dan shouts to Sora who just killed a heartless right next to us.

"Sorry, but killing one makes two more appear." Sora says while charging at another one.

"That's it, I'm getting out of here." Dan starts to lean forward. I'm about to yell at him when his legs leave the sand and he ends up laying on his belly. He slowly crawls across the sand before finally standing up on safe ground.

"What the- now save me!" I shout at him.

"No thanks, that's how I got stuck to begin with." He grabs his sword and chases after a heartless.

"Well that's just great." I pour as my shoulders are about to reach the sand.

"Ah, found it!" Aladdin, who is up to his neck now in sand, pulls out an oil lamp and starts rubbing it with his thumb. "Genie, save us!"

Blue smoke shoots out of the lamp as some one starts shouting. Then, with a blast of light, the Genie of the lamp appears and, with a snap of his fingers, all the heartless disappear and the quicksand turns into regular sand. "That's one wish down, two to go!" He shouts in triumph.

"Thanks Genie, that was a close one." Aladdin digs himself out of the sand and faces us. I quickly get out of the sand and move to the others. "Ugh, it's a good thing you found me or I would've been a goner." He rubs the back of his head while saying this.

"No problem" Dan says. "We wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for that carpet." A flying carpet whooshes by us and hugs Aladdin.

"Carpet!" So you saved me, huh?" He steps onto the carpet and beckons for us. "Come on, I'll give you a ride back."

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"Ah, it's great to be back out in the open air." Genie says while flying laps around us.

"You don't get out much, do you." Sora says.

"That's the thing about genies. Having these awesome cosmic powers but with an itty bitty little living space.

"There's always a catch to these things." Dan says.

"Well at least I have such a great master." Genie flies up and smacks Aladdin on the back. "Who, might I add, still has two wishes. So what would your next wish be?" Genie conjures a microphone and holds it up to Aladdin's mouth.

"Hmm." Aladdin says, pushing the microphone out of the way. "What would you wish for, Genie?"

"Me?" Genie says, disgruntled by this. "I've never thought about it. I guess I would wish for freedom. But of course, what master would wish for my freedom?" Genie says, getting back into his joyful mood.

"Well, I could wish for your freedom." Aladdin says.

"Really, you would do that for me?" Genie says, even more surprised now.

"Sure thing. I'll use my last wish to set you free. It's a promise." Aladdin says happily.

"Great, so what would your second wish be then?"

"Uh, well…" Aladdin actually thinks about it now." There's this girl that I really like, but she's a princess. There's just no way for her to go for a guy like me." Aladdin hangs his head while saying this.

"Well, there's a way to fix that. How about I make you a prince! There will be lots of riches and a huge parade. Oh, I can't wait!"

"Sweet, a parade! I wanna be in it!" I giggle, thinking of me being watched by all those hot guys on the street.

"Sam, what's the point of a parade if there is no one to watch it?" Dan says, once again breaking my dreams.

"Maybe we should wait till we get back to town. Princess Jasmine is bound to fall in love with me." Aladdin says.

"Princess?" Goofy says as Donald says, "Jasmine?"

"Oh, that's right!" Sora shouts. "Jasmines in trouble!"

"What? Carpet, hurry up!" Aladdin shouts.

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"Agh, open up!" I shout as I repeatedly kick the humongous doors to the palace. After lifting all those damn boxes and plywood out of the way just to get to these doors, we find out that they are locked? I hate karma!

"We'll have to find a different way inside." Sora says while looking around.

"Or maybe Genie could open the doors." Dan suggests.

"Sure, just make a wish." Genie says.

"Can't you just do a favor?" Dan asks him. "Well, ugh…" Genie thinks about it, but Sora spots a way through.

"We can go through there." He points up to a doorway on top of a ledge.

"This town is crazy. Who could possibly get up there?" I ask.

"Hey, you guys coming or what?" Aladdin asks, already at the doorway.

"Street rats." I sigh.23458971289-57289035

"Ah, the filthy street rats always find little holes to crawl through." Jafar sneers at us. He is evil, but he never did end up on my top ten evil Disney villains list. I mean, he pretty much goes through all of this just to marry Jasmine and become Sultan of some random desert city. Nothing about taking over the world or doing something evil just to be evil. So lame.

"I'm so sorry, Aladdin." Jasmine says from behind Jafar. What is she sorry about, being a cliché princess who gets captured by the villain?"

"Jasmine!" Aladdin starts rubbing Genie's lamp behind his back. "Genie, go help her." He mumbles.

Jasmine suddenly appears in Genie's arms as he floats towards us. Man, this world seemed to fly by. All we have to do now is beat up Jafar and his pesky bird. What's his name again? Crap, I'll be thinking about this for awhile. "Aladdin, behind you!" Dan shouts, drawing my attention.

The parrot that I can't quite remember the name of grabs the lamp with his talons and flies to Jafar. "So sorry boy, but your wish has been denied." He laughs.

"I'm sorry." Genie says as he drops Jasmine into a big pot. See, now that's something to be sorry about.

"Guys, we have a problem" I say as a bunch of the pots grow legs and stand up.

"A big problem." Dan adds as two pots explode, revealing some heartless.294812089451807952452345

All these thoughts are going through my head. I walk down a long hallway as each thought passes through my head.

"_I've been looking for you…_"

"_No, he can't come!_"

"_He quite simply replaced you…_"

"_Sora really misses you._"

"_You have another boy though._"

I stop and punch the wall with my fist. "This is not what I wanted!" I shout.

A heartless appears, causing me to put my hatred on it. With out Maleficent, they will keep coming for my heart. I pant as I straighten up. I have to hurry or else Maleficent will get impatient.

I walk into the chapel of the castle. Everything looks gothic, which goes well with the string of people circled around the table in the middle.

Maleficent turns around at my approach and shows her wicked smile. I think she thinks it looks carrying. "Ah yes, Riku. I've been expecting you."

"So what's up." I say, cutting to the chase.

"Jafar is going to be consumed by darkness soon. Either that or he'll be killed." She adds. She doesn't even need to say the name of who would kill him. "So I need the two of you to capture the princess."

"The two of- you mean I have to bring _him with me?"_

"_Of course. He'll be the one to make the dark portal for you. It will be quick and simple. Just run in, grab the princess and run back here."_

"_Just that long makes me want to rip his head off." I tell her._

"_Oh, I'm sad to hear that." She croons. "You see, I believe Hook might have found the location of your friend." My heart almost stops after hearing this. "But I guess we could wait for another chance-"_

"_I'll go." I say in almost a whisper._

"_Splendid, go outside to find your partner." I ignore that remark for the sake of seeing Kiari again._

_I step outside to find that she was speaking the truth. "So Maleficent wants me to babysit you again, huh?" I writhe at his mocking voice.2304871685617898916581705_

"_Ow." I grunt as I wash some electrical stings on my arms with a potion. "I'm going to kill whoever thought of making a centipede of pots that has electric stingers." I moan._

"_Good news, you'll get to once we find him." Dan says as he too pours a potion on his stinging arms._

_Aladdin looks through all of the broken pot debris before shouting, "Jasmine!" At the top of his lungs. Jafar's laughter comes out of nowhere to mock us. "Quick, to the desert!" Aladdin shouts over the laughter. Carpet flies to us and we quickly jump on it before it takes off for the desert._

"_What's in the desert?" Sora shouts over the wind. Carpet is flying extremely fast._

"_The Cave of Wonders!" Aladdin answers. "It's where I found Genie's lamp!"_

_We get to the same area where we saved Aladdin earlier and jump off._

"_Hopefully he'll let us all through." Aladdin says while walking to a big mound of sand._

"_He? Who's he?" Sora says while following him. The ground starts to shake and I fall downs creaming, "Earthquake!"_

_A huge tiger head made of sand forms from the ground and roars. "Something's wrong." Aladdin notices as the tiger head seems to glare at us._

"_It's eyes are glowing with darkness." Dan notices. "Looks like we'll have to get in it's mouth the hard way."_

"_We WANT it to eat us?" Sora asks in disbelief._

"_Look, the inside of his mouth is lit up. That is where the cave entrance is." I tell him._

"_Well come on. We've got to get in there somehow." Dan says while rushing at the head. Just as he reaches the mouth, the head shake's itself violently, whacking Dan away._

"_My turn!" I shout excitedly as I make a charge for the mouth. Ha, the mouth of the cave is the mouth of the tiger, wow. As I get up to the mouth, the tiger does a snout dive, pushing it's face into the sand. "Hey, no fair! You can't hide your mouth!" What would I do for a rolled up newspaper. No wait, tigers are cats, not dogs._

"_You guys would never make it as a thief like me." Aladdin gloats as he runs up to the tiger head and, right as it lifts it's head, jumps right into the mouth._

"_Show off!" I shout, but then Sora follows suit and jumps right in before the tiger could do anything. At seeing this, I shriek and shout, "I suck at this." Before walking away. I walk past Dan, who is stifling a chuckle. I rap him on top of the head with my pole. "You try again, then!"_

_Dan, taking the challenge, races up to the head, which quickly raises it's chin. "Not this time!" Dan shouts as he nimbly jumps on top of it's snout and goes straight for the glowing eyes. With a quick jab, he jabs both of them before getting knocked off as the tiger roars in agony. This group sure seems to be big on animal abuse, but at least he gives me an opportunity to jump into the roaring mouth.120341897236458917465789_

_I land with a splash. A hard one. I climb up onto a random platform and look around. I'm in a dank, dark cavern full of water. "Well this doesn't look like the movie." I say to myself._

"_Look like what?" I jump at Sora's voice. Turns out he and Aladdin stayed here for us._

"_This- uh wasn't what I was expecting." I fix myself._

"_Yeah, the treasure is actually up there. This is more like a basement." Aladdin explains._

_A splash behind me indicates Dan has finally made it. "What took you so long?" I ask as he gets out of the water._

"_Oh, I don't know." He says. "Maybe it was the giant tiger head, or the heartless it started to summon or maybe it had to do with no one there to help me!" Don't you love sarcasm" I just roll my eyes at him._

"_Hey, at least we're all here." Sora says, but then stops and looks at all of us. "Wait, where's Donald and Goofy?" Crap, I forgot all about them._

"_Well, they were helping us fight that pot centipede and then… they became unconscious." Dan says. "We must have left them at the palace."_

"_How could we have left them!" Sora stressed out. "Come on, we've got to go get them!"_

"_No way!" I shout. "We are not going out that tiger head until we are finished in here!"_

"_Besides, there isn't really a way to get up there anyways." Aladdin says._

_Sora sighs. "Fine, but don't blame me when Donald decides to leave without us."_

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_We walk up some stairs and end up in a lit room filled with huge piles of gold. "Now this is more like it!" I say while examining a gold coin._

"_Better not take any or that tiger head will get mad." Dan says, crushing my dreams for the second time today._

"_Fine, I don't want to be rich anyways." I say, throwing the coin at the back of his head. Either his thick hair blocks it or he just ignores it because he keeps on walking._

"_So this is where Jafar is, right?" Sora points to the entrance to another room._

"_I hope so." He answers back. "There isn't anywhere else to check." So we walk in and, what do you know, Jafar is right there with an unconscious Jasmine, a depressed Genie and… is that Maleficent?_

_We run to the room before Sora skids to a stop and asks her, "Are you Maleficent?" As an answer, she disappears in a puff of smoke._

"_Genie, for my first wish. Show me the keyhole!" Jafar shouts. Genie unwillingly does so, while covering his eyes with a hand. The keyhole appears out of the stone wall in front of us. "And for my second wish." Jafar puts his attention on us now. "Crush them!"_

"_But I thought genies couldn't kill people." I say._

"_Doesn't mean he can't slow us down enough for Jafar to kill us off." Dan says while unsheathing his sword._

"_All right, let's beat him to a pulp!" Sora shouts in glee as he races off, leaving us in his dust._

"_He's going to kill himself some day." Dan says as he follows after him. I quickly follow suit._

_Sora jumps onto the platform that Jafar is on, but right when he swings at him, Jafar flies into the air and floats over to a new platform. "Hey, no fair!" Sora shouts._

_I run after Jafar and climb up the platform, but before I can reach him, he casts a spell and sends a stream of some kind of fire at me, knocking me off the ledge. "Ow." I moan, sitting up on the ground and holding my head._

"_Get up and fight." Dan says as he climbs up the same platform. He dodges a blast of magic and gives a few hits before Jafar flies off again. "It's like trying to catch a dog that doesn't want a bath." He says._

"_Dan, look out!" I shout up at him. He looks behind him and gets smacked by Genie as he shouts, "I'm sorry!" Dan lands right next to me, a little dazed._

"_That's it, we need to think of a plan." He says. "This isn't just some heartless. He can actually think."_

"_Well what should we do?" I ask him. "He's not a genie yet so we can't just destroy his lamp."_

"_Or can we?" He asks, thinking about something._

"_Uh, no. We can't." I tell him._

"_We need to get that lamp." Dan tells me._

"_What lamp! Jafar isn't a genie yet!" I shout._

"_No, not Jafar's lamp. We need to get Genie's lamp."_

"_Oh." I say, understanding him now. "Well why didn't you say so?"_

_He rolls his eyes at me before going after Jafar again. "Just follow my lead. The lamp must be somewhere on him." Dan says. Ew, that sounds so gross. But I do follow him._

_Dan and I run up to where Sora and Aladdin are fighting Jafar. It looks to me like a losing battle. Jafar is floating two high for the two of them to reach. "I'll help you up." Dan tells me, crossing his fingers together to form a footstool for me. I place a foot up there and, with him pushing me off, I jump up high enough to latch onto Jafar's foot._

"_Let go of me you filthy little street rat!" Jafar shouts while trying to kick me off._

"_You really need to think of better names to call us." I roll my eyes. Dan, Sora and Aladdin grab onto my feet and pull us both down. As soon as we touch the ground, Dan makes a dash for jafar and jabs him in the chest with his hilt. While Jafar is regaining his breath, Dan searches him and brings out the lamp._

"_Hmm, now what should I do with this?" Dan asks while dangling the lamp in front of Jafar._

"_Iago !" Jafar beckons. Ah, that's the birds name! Iago flies out of nowhere and grabs the lamp out of Dan's hand._

"_Dan, you need to be more careful!" I shout at him. I can't believe he would just give it up so easily!_

"_Now you've done it." Jafar sneers. "You even took back the lamp, but I will always be on top." He floats back up in the air after taking the lamp from Iago._

"_It's only a matter of time before we take it from you again." Dan counters. "There is nothing you can protect yourself from us. Your magic isn't enough. It's not like your Genie, here." He says, pointing at Genie, who is trying to hold himself from hitting us again." No matter what we do, Genie could never be killed."_

"_For being a street rat… you are right." Jafar admits. "But, you did give me such a great idea." Jafar rubs the lamp and looks at Genie. "For my final wish, make me an all powerful Genie!"_

"_Dan, what are you thinking!" Sora shouts at Dan._

"_No wait," Aladdin interrupts. "I think I know what you're doing." He says with a pleased look._

_Genie Jafar appears out of a big red cloud of smoke, and that is when the floor disappears. I scream as we all fall into a pit of lava. We all land, painfully might I add, on a platform surrounded by all the lava._

_Jafar floats next to us, pondering about something. "Hmm, yes. How should I do this?" He asks himself. "I could turn you all into the filthy street rats that you are and burn you alive. Or maybe I'll summon a swarm of locusts to eat you alive. Oh, how about using different torture devices on each of you until you all bow down to me?" Oh, he's pondering on how to kill us._

"_You know, talking to yourself is a big sign of being insane!" I shout at him._

"_Oh, here's an idea!" He continues on. "I'll do all of the above!" Jafar starts to snap his fingers to kill us._

"_Not so fast!" Dan shouts. "You wouldn't want to hurt this, would you?" Dan dangles a lamp in front of Jafar. This time, it's a black one._

"_What is that?" Jafar asks him._

"_Your lamp, which means I'm your master." Dan gloats._

"_What! This can't be!" Jafar shouts. "Conned by measly street rats? This is unbefitting of me!"_

"_Oh shut up already." Dan says. He starts to rub the lamp, but then stops. "You know what? I can't think of any wishes. Here," He gives me the lamp." How about you make a wish?"_

"_Uh, well…" I think about what I'd really like, and an idea pops up. "I know. I really miss my boyfriend." I rub the lamp and shout, "I wish my boyfriend, George, was here with me!"_

_Jafar growls at the task, but raises his hands in obedience. A puff of red smoke appears next to me and my heart starts to pump rapidly at the thought of me being in George's arms again. But when the puff of smoke disappears…_

"_Where is he!" I shout at Jafar. "I am your master and I declare you tell me where he is!"_

_Jafar simply laughs at me. "I have no idea where he is, but it seems not even my powers can bring him to you!" He keeps on laughing at me as I fall on my knees, tears streaming down my face. I throw the lamp on the ground in disgust._

_Enraged, Dan grabs the lamp and shouts, "That's enough, now get back in your lamp!" Even while defeated, Jafar still laughs as he is violently sucked into the lamp. Dan then hurls the lamp as hard as he can into the lava pit below us. Good. I don't give a damn if he dies now. I want him to._

"_Come on, Sam. Let's go." Dan gently pushes me up to a standing position. "Aladdin, we need carpet." He tells Aladdin, who whistles loudly._

_Carpet zooms down to us and Dan helps me up onto it. Sora and Aladdin get on too, and Carpet flies up to where the keyhole is. Dan and I stay on Carpet as Sora and Aladdin get off. Sora locks the keyhole with the usual beam of blue light coming from his key blade, but Aladdin fails to find Jasmine._

"_Jasmine!" He shouts in grief. Great, you can join the heart break club I just made._

_The cave starts to tremor and the ceiling starts to cave in. I hold my head with my hands and tremble at it. I don't scream though. My mind is too focused on my woe to be afraid of another stupid earthquake. My eyes are closed, but I can tell Sora and Aladdin joined us. Carpet flies off to where our lives will escape dying, but not where my heart will._

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_In Aladdin's house, the others are discussing about Jasmine's dilemma._

"_You've got to let me go with you." Aladdin persists. "I want to rescue Jasmine."_

"_I'm sorry, but we can't bring you with us." Sora says._

"_Yeah, we would be muddlin'" Goofy adds._

"_Meddling." Donald fixes Goofy._

"_But Al, you still have one wish." Genie says. "Just wish for Jasmine back. It's as simple as that."_

"_I…" Aladdin looks at Genie. "I wish for you freedom, Genie."_

"_Al!" Genie shouts in surprise. Blue sparks pop from his body and the two golden cuffs on his arms fall off._

"_We made a promise, right?" Aladdin smiles at Genie's joy._

"_Oh, this is wonderful, I'm free! I can travel around the world! It will be a blast! Genie starts flying all over the place._

"_I could have wished for Jasmine back." Dan tells Aladdin._

_He simply waves it off. "I trust you guys to rescue her." He says. "Just… don't take too long doing it." He chuckles a little. "Hey, Genie. Do you mind if you go with them to help?" He asks._

_Genie folds his arms and shows us his back. "I'm sorry, but I don't take orders anymore." But then he looks back and smiles. "But a favor, now I can handle that."_

"_Of course, now you take favors." Dan says._

"_Uh, Genie." I finally speak up. "It's just… why couldn't Jafar complete my wish?"_

_Genie loses his joyful look and replaces it with a sad one. "There's only three things that a genie can't do." He explains. "We can't kill people, make people fall in love… and." Genie can't seem to say it._

"_And?" I ask, even though I already know the answer. Dan tries to be comforting by embracing me in a hug._

"_We can't bring people back to life."_


	8. Chapter 8: Truth and Consequences

"So how is she?" Sora asks me.

"Still crying in the bathroom." I tell him. We've been flying on the gummi ship for way over an hour, yet Sam has been in the bathroom, bawling her eyes out the whole time.

"Tell her to get over it." Donald says from the pilot seat. "Love is stupid anyways."

"Hey, shut up before I roast you!" I shout, my hand already on my sword hilt.

"Uh, no fighting." Sora goes between us. "How can we protect each other if we're trying to kill each other?"

"We can't." Goofy answers.

"Goofy, that was a rhetorical question." Sora sighs.

"Well what do tortoises have to do with the question?" Goofy asks.

"What are you talking about!" Sora slaps his forehead. "Honestly, Goofy, you can really tick me off with your absurdly small brain."

"Gwarsh, that doesn't sound nice at all."

"That's the problem with bringing evil teens with us!" Donald shouts.

"_We're evil? You're the one who doesn't care about Sam's feelings!" I shout at him._

"_Well you're not even meant to be here!" Donald counters._

"_Hey, Dan and Sam have helped us a lot. Riku would have too if you let him join!" Sora shouts out._

"_Sora, you shouldn't yell at Donald!" Goofy now begins to shout._

_We all start shouting, then. I can't even understand what anybody is shouting, but it feels so good to let this all out. The toilet from the bathroom flushes and we all go quiet. Sam comes out of the bathroom, dabbing her eyes with toilet paper. "The toilet's clogged." She sniffs._

_We all stare at her like she just chopped her head off. She gives us a what-are-you-staring-at look, but then she looks behind us with her mouth agape. "Whale!" She shouts while pointing behind us._

"_What? There's no whale in space." Donald looks behind him and shrieks, "Agh, what is a whale doing in space!"_

"_Let me see." A cricket jumps onto Sora's shoulder. Wait, how long has Jiminy been with us, the whole time? "That's Monstro and he's a whale of a whale at that."_

"_Well it looks like that whale of a whale is hungry." I say._

"_Look out, he's coming at us!" Sora shouts. "Move the ship!"_

"_It's too late!" Donald cries out. Monstro slams into the ship and I feel my head get hit by something hard._

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"_He's not waking up."_

"_Well that's what happens when someone gets hit in the head with a keyblade."_

"_I said I'm sorry. To make you feel better, you were pushed on top of me."_

"_That makes me feel worse!"_

"_So what should we do then?"_

"_I've got an idea… Beep! Beep! Beep!"_

_I jump up onto my feet and look around. "So Monstro ate us, then?" I ask them._

"_Wow, just making beeping sounds turns him on like a robot." Sora says in awe._

"_Yeah, so what should we do now?" I ask, trying to get to the point._

"_Ow." Goofy says as a potion container falls on his head._

"_Hey, who's up there?" Donald shouts up to a platform where the container fell from._

"_It's me!" A little boy says as he shows his face to us._

"_Oh, it's just Pinocchio. Wait, Pinocchio!" Donald shrieks._

"_Pinocchio?" Jiminy jumps on Sora's shoulder to get a better view. After picking up a huge gummi block, Pinocchio starts to walk away. "Pinocchio, come back! Pinocchio!" Jiminy shouts, but the puppet keeps walking. "Come on guys, let's follow him."_

_We jump into the water below us and swim up to the wooden boat that Pinocchio jumps on. As we climb up the boat, we here two voices._

"_Oh, Pinocchio. There you are." Says who I believe to be Geppetto. "I wish you wouldn't run away like that. It would break this old man's heart if you were to disappear."_

"_But father, look what I found." Pinocchio must be pointing at the gummi block. "This can help us fly out of here."_

"_Really, this can help us out?"_

"_That's right." Sora says as we all finally get to the top of the boat._

"_Oh my, so you were swallowed by the whale too?" Geppetto asks us._

"_Yeah, seems like he loves the taste of wood." I say, indicating the thousands of wooden planks everywhere._

"_Probably from other ships that Monstro has swallowed. But at least Pinocchio and I are together again. I just wish he would stay out of trouble."_

"_You mean like now?" Sora points at Pinocchio who is entering a tunnel next to the ship._

"_Oh, not again. Can you please go follow him? I just don't know what I'd do if he got in trouble." Geppetto says solemnly._

"_No problem." I tell him. I lift Sam, who had sat on the floor, up to her feet and head for the tunnel. The others follow behind._

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_Upon entering the tunnel, we spot Pinocchio in the middle of a room. The weird part is that the room is moving. The innards of a whale is not what I expected it to look like._

"_Come on Pinocchio. Your father's worried about you." Sora turns around to walk away, but Riku's voice stops him._

"_But Sora, I thought you liked games. Or are you too cool to play them now that you have the keyblade?" Riku says while standing next to Pinocchio. Some one else is behind them. Who is that?_

"_Riku! Wh-What are you doing here?" Sora asks in surprise._

"_Just playing with Pinocchio." Riku answers as if it's normal to travel to the inside of a whale to play with a living puppet._

"_You know what I mean! What about Kiari? Did you find her?"_

"_Maybe. Catch us and maybe I'll tell you what I know." Riku grabs Pinocchio and runs into the next room._

"_Come on!" Sora shouts as he chases after him. The other figure blocks him, though._

"_Ah, ah, ah." The man says as he wags his finger at Sora. At a closer look, I can see he has long dark blonde hair and a grizzled goatee. Wait, he kind of looks familiar…_

"_J-James?" I ask while trying to look at him better. Yes, I see some similarities in him._

"_What, James?" Sam gets out of a stupor she was in and looks at the man. "That can't be James, he's too old to be." She's right though, he looks like he could be in his mid-twenties._

"_No, Dan's right. I am James." He says in that voice that only James could pull off._

"_You know this guy?" Sora asks us. "Well then tell him to get out of the way!"_

"_But how did you get here, and with Riku to make it worse?" I ask him. "I haven't seen you since that earthquake, yet your so… old. What's going on?"_

_James seems to show an expression of surprise, but then covers it up. "So you want to know what happened after that earthquake?"_

"_Yeah, and why you look ten years older than us!" Sam shouts out in reply._

"_Hmm, ten years. That's about right. Tell you what, I rather like Riku's idea. Come catch us and I might tell you what I know." James says in his mocking voice._

"_Are you serious!" I shout at him as Sam shouts, "Don't give me that shit!"_

"_Oh, by the way." He adds as he backs towards the door that Riku went through. "I'd use that door if I were you." He points at another doorway before running away._

"_Forget that!" Sam shouts as she and Sora chase after James. I look at the other door, though, and am surprised when Sora and Sam come back with angered looks. "It led to a room with walls to high for us to jump over!" Sam answers me before I can ask the question._

"_So wait, James was actually helping us with that hint?" I ask._

"_He was probably just messing with our heads." Sam says as she chooses the other door to go through. Sora, Donald and Goofy follow after her._

"_But that isn't the type of thing he'd usually do." I mutter to myself before following after them._

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_We come to a halt upon seeing the room with many plateaus, ditches and doorways to go with them. "Where'd they go!" Sora asks as we all think the same thing._

"_Hey, there's James!" Goofy points to a doorway on the opposite side of a deep ditch. Sora, Donald and Goofy instantly take a leap to the other side, but Sam and I hesitate before finally jumping. We run into the next room and look around for James._

"_Ah, there he is!" Donald runs into the doorway right next to us. We follow him and end up in another room._

"_This whale is too big!" Sam shouts. "How can we possibly catch them?"_

"_Just being able to see James is helpful enough." I say. Which is really weird to me. It's almost as if he wants us to find them._

"_There he is!" Sora points to a doorway in the middle of the room. We run through it and come to a stop in front of Riku, James and Pinocchio._

"_Riku, what's the matter with you?" Sora asks him. "What are you thinking? Don't you realize what you're doing?" Actually, I have no idea what he's doing._

"_I was about to ask you the same thing, Sora." He says back. "You only seem interested in running around and showing off that keyblade these days. Do you even want to save Kiari?"_

"_I do." Sora says depressingly. Before anything else could be said, Pinocchio's shrieking comes from the room across from us. Riku looks behind him, shocked to see Pinocchio missing, but quickly runs into the next room._

"_Kids these days. Always have to run around and get in trouble." James says before sighing and running after the two._

"_The way things are going, we won't learn a thing from these two." I say._

"_Well we've got to keep trying!" Sam shouts. "He knows everything and I'm not afraid to rip it out of him!"_

"_But that would kill him." I try to reason with her, but she runs off into the next room._

"_Come on, we'll figure out what to do once we get there." Sora says. I agree and we all go into the next room._

"_Help me!" Pinocchio shouts from inside the mouth of a heartless. Well that's strange. No, it's mouth is on it's head, so that must be a mouth for it's stomach? Instead of trying to think about that, I unsheathe my sword and charge at it._

_I swing at the mouth holding Pinocchio, but my sword bounces right off of it. Riku comes in and successfully attacks it's actual head. "Idiot." He tells me. "You're supposed to attack it's head."_

"_Okay, that's it." I say. I don't need some stupid dark boy to tell me I'm an idiot! I jump back out of the way as the heartless swing's it's arms at us. With a quick burst of speed, I leap on top of the heartless and continuously attack it's head while balancing myself on it's shoulders._

"_Stupid! Heartless! Just! Die!" I shout with each strike. Finally, the heartless can't take any more and it's arms rise to the ceiling and lifts itself into the air. I jump off and look back in time to see Pinocchio thrown up into a hole in the ground before disappearing. Riku instantly jumps in the hole, but I block James' path._

"_You're not going anywhere until you tell us what's going on." I glare at him while saying this._

"_Oh please. I don't have to tell you anything." James tries to walk by me but I push him against the wall and hold my sword up against his neck. "Having a little tantrum, are you?" He asks, but I can hear a hint of fear in his voice._

"_Sora, you better go. This could take awhile." I tell him._

"_Uh, okay." He goes down the hole and Donald and Goofy follow after._

"_Now tell us." I say, putting my attention back on James. "What is going on? What happened to our world?"_

"_If we were anywhere else, I'd say we were on our world. But alas, we're in a giant whale instead." James muses._

"_Ugh, stop that and tell u exactly what happened!" Sam shouts at him._

"_Oh fine. Now where should I start? I know, I'll tell you how long it's been since that destined earthquake." I'm about to shout at him that that wouldn't help, but he starts talking first. "Let's see, it has been seven hundred and thirty-nine years, three months, one week, four days, nine hours, seventeen minutes and twenty-two seconds, twenty-three seconds, twenty-four-"_

"_Are you insane!" I shout at him._

"_Oh no, I'm quite sane. How about you?"_

"_I feel insane from all of this!" I think about what he's saying, though. "So you're saying that we're in the future?"_

"_Precisely. We're seven hundred and thirty-nine years, three months-"_

"_No, stop. We already know that." I stop him._

"_But how did we get here? Last I remember is falling down that big crevice…" Sam stops at that. "All of these worlds used to be together to form our planet, but then that earthquake happened and… this."_

"_Ooh, Sam seems to be our winner." James says. Yes, the earthquake is the catalyst to all that has happened to you, to me and to all existence right now."_

"_But how did we get here?" I ask him._

"_By gummi ship I presume. Or do you mean the future?" I think I might save that for another time." With unknown strength, James pushes me off of him. Out of anger, I take a swing at him, but he walks backwards into the way, except there's some kind of dark aura around it. The aura disappears and I end up hitting the wall._

"_Damn it!" Sam and I shout. I strike the wall again out of rage._

"_Come on, he must have gone back to Riku." Sam jumps into the hole and I quickly follow._

_We land back on Geppetto's ship. Sora, Geppetto, Donald and Goofy are looking across the water to a cliff that Riku standing on. He's holding an unconscious Pinocchio in his arm._

"_Oh please, give me back my son!" Geppetto pleads with Riku._

"_Sorry, old man." Riku answers back. "I have some unfinished business with this puppet."_

"_He's no puppet! Pinocchio is my little boy!"_

"_He is unusual. Not many puppets have hearts. I'm not sure, but maybe he can help someone who's lost theirs."_

_Sora gasps. "Wait a minute. Are you talking about Kiari?"_

"_What do you care about her?" James appears behind Riku. "Where have you been?" He asks James._

"_Just had to finish being interrogated by Sherlock and Watson over there." James answers._

"_What are you talking about?" Riku says, but instead of waiting for an answer, he goes into a different room. James gives us a kids-these-days look before heading after him._

"_No, Pinocchio." Geppetto moans._

"_Don't worry, we'll go save him." Donald reassures him._

"_Oh thank you so much. Here, I bet I have something to help." Geppetto goes into the back of the ship._

"_But wait, did you find anything out from James?" Goofy asks us._

"_Yeah, it turns out we're not sixteen and eighteen years old. We're actually seven hundred and fifty-five and seven hundred and fifty-seven years old." Sam scoffs._

"_Oh, don't forget the added three months which means it's past our birthdays. We're actually seven hundred and fifty-six and seven hundred and fifty-eight years old." I retort._

"_Uh, what exactly did he tell you?" Sora asks in confusion._

"_Sora, what month is it?" I ask him in turn._

"_It's October, but I don't really understand-"_

"_October? Not July?" I think about this. "Three months since… he's telling the truth." I say in shock._

"_No way!" Sam shouts. "It can't be." She adds in a low voice._

"_Sora, I think we're from the distant past and this is our future." I say._

"_Ah, quit fooling around." Donald says. "How could you possibly be from the past."_

"_He didn't tell us that part." Sam says._

"_It does explain a lot though. All these small worlds, why we never saw heartless before, why umm…" I don't add the George being dead part."_

_Geppetto comes from the back of the ship with a chest. "Here, I think these might help you." He opens the chest and brings out five pendants. "These help improve how hi you jump." He says as he attaches one to each of our shirts. "Don't ask how because I haven't gotten a clue."_

"_We can jump higher?" Sora tests it out and ends up hitting his head on the ceiling of the ship. "Cool, but ouch." He says._

"_Great, let's go." I jump off the boat and land right where James and Riku were. The others jump up to me and we walk into what looks to be the lungs of Monstro._

_We jump onto the many platforms protruding from the walls and quickly head for the top. Jumping through the roof, we end up in a room with acid everywhere._

"_Is this the stomach? That's are messed up whale to have a stomach above it's lungs." Sam says._

"_Hey, let Pinocchio go Riku." Sora says._

"_A puppet that's lost its heart to the Heartless… maybe it holds the key to helping Kiari. How about it, Sora? Let's join forces to save her." Riku asks Sora. "We can do it together."_

_As an answer, Sora holds his keyblade in a battle stance. "What? You'd rather fight me? Over a puppet that has no heart?" Riku scoffs._

"_Heart or no heart, at least he still has a conscience." Sora answers_

"_Conscience?" Riku asks, confused._

"_You might not hear it, but it's loud and clear. And it's telling me you're on the wrong side!"_

"_Then you leave me no choice."_

"_Pinocchio!" Jiminy jumps off of Sora's shoulder and runs over to Pinocchio, who is sitting against a wall in the back._

"_Jiminy, I'm not gonna make it." Pinocchio mumbles. His nose grows after he says that and he suddenly perks up and says, "Oh, I guess I'm okay!" Wow, how corny and stupid was that?_

_Riku looks at the two, but then looks up as the same heartless as before plunges down on him. One of those dark portals are made again and he and James run through it._

_Pinocchio grabs Jiminy and runs behind us as we grab our weapons. "Remember me!" I shout as I try to jump on it again, but it smacks me away with it's arms._

_Sora jumps up after the arms stop moving to successfully give a few hits before having to back away as the arms start to swing again._

_Sam decides to jump on one of the several platforms against the walls and continuously casts spells on the heartless' head. Donald jumps on a platform on the opposite side of the room and does the same._

_The heartless sticks its arms into the acid and pumps it into him. Sora jumps out of the way, but a blast of acid catches on to my sleeve as I try to jump out of the way._

_I quickly cast blizzard on it, freezing the acid to my sleeve. "Do you know how much this cost!" I shout at the heartless._

"_You sound like a girl." Sam laughs at me._

"_You do realize who pays for the clothing, right?" I ask her._

_She stops laughing and shouts at the heartless. "Do you know how much that cost!"_

_Goofy throws his shield like a boomerang and hit's the heartless in the head and even knocks it unconscious._

"_Way to go!" Sora shouts as he bashes the heartless while it's still unconscious. We all head in for the kill and, with a couple more swings of the weapons, the heartless vanishes and one of those big blue hearts float away again._

_The room starts to violently shake and the stomach acid splashes all over the place. "Riku!" Sora shouts._

"_Forget it, he's gone!" I shout as I drag him out of there. Sam runs next to me, and, noticing that she's not freaking out, I ask, "Aren't you afraid of earthquakes?"_

_She shakes her head and says, "This isn't an earthquake, it's morst likely the whale getting ready to sneeze."_

_At hearing this, I shout, "To the ship!" We all rush down the lungs and head back to the mouth of the whale. Donald opens up the gummi ship doors and we head inside and take our seats._

"_Seatbelts!" Donald quacks as he turns the ship on. He ship levitates off the ground right as Monstro sneezes and we are sent flying out into space. Donald steadies the ship and we watch Monstro swim away._

"_I hope they made it out okay." Sora worries._

"_Don't worry." I say. "I bet we'll even see them again someday."_

"_So then… that's why." Sam says._

"_What's why?" I ask her._

"_Why George is dead." She answers. "He died a long time ago, maybe even from old age…" She hangs her head._

"_Sam." I say. I'm not sure if I'm more irritated by this or sentimental toward it._

"_Well he lived his life." She says as she raises her head. "Now it's time to live mine, and you to live your life." She even brings out a smile on her face._

_I smile back. "Yeah, that's exactly what we'll do, to."_


	9. Chapter 9: 10,000 miseries under the sea

We've been flying in silence for awhile now. Nobody has dared to say a word. Out of annoyance of this and thinking it's about time for them to know, I ask Sam, "So should we tell them?"

"Tell them what?" Sam asks back.

"Yeah, tell us what?" Sora asks too.

"About the many worlds and how they are like the many Disney stories." I say.

"The what now?" Sora asks in total confusion.

I sigh. "This is going to take awhile."

"Well than I'll help." Sam says. "Okay, the first thing that should be said is that we're from the past."

"We already know that." Donald says.

"Don't interrupt the explanation!" Sam shouts. "Now then, the second thing is to say that in the past, we had televisions which allowed us to see broadcasted events." She stops then, confused on how to put it.

"Oh, you had televisions back then?" Sora asks.

"Yeah, do you have them now?" I ask.

"Yeah, I like watching sports on mine."

"Good, so you know what it is." Sam continues. "Well there was a company that made movies. These movies seem to show a resemblance to a lot of these worlds we're visiting."

"Whoa, so they could see into the future?" Sora asks.

"Don't know, maybe." I answer.

"So you're saying that you pretty much know what's going to happen in every world we visit?" Donald asks. "Why didn't you tell us before?"

"It's not that simple." I say. "The movies are based off of the worlds, meaning that they aren't exactly the same. We only know the locations, protagonists and antagonists pretty much."

"Well that's still good, I guess." Sora says.

The room goes back to being silent. After awhile, Donald stops the ship and says, "We're here. Get ready to land."

"Land where?" Sora asks. "It's all water. We'll die if we go down there.

I look at the world and silently agree with him. The world looks like a rock with many holes in it where you can see an underwater world. Not good, that palace looks familiar.

"Oh great, a world based off of The Little Mermaid." Sam groans.

"Great, a way to test you guys out." Donald says. "What should we expect down there?"

"A horrible land full of insane siren sounding me people, ugly sea creatures and a completely ridiculous villain that is part octopus-part something else, but all ugly hag."

Donald thinks for a second before saying, "Maybe we should skip this world."

"But they'll need our help if all of that is true." Goofy says.

"Yeah, it's good to help people. Good stuff will happen to us in turn." Sora says.

"Fine, how about we vote." Donald suggests. "Who wants to skip this world?" Donald and Sam raise their hands.

"Who wants to go to this world?" Sora asks smugly at seeing only two hands for skipping. He and Goofy raise their hands, but I keep my hand down.

"Dan, you have to vote too." Sam tells me. "Are you telling me that you'd rather go down there?"

"I don't know… How are we supposed to go down there anyways?" I ask.

"I'd use my magic to transform us and make gills." Donald answers.

"I vote for skipping!" I quickly raise my hand.

"Great now let's-wait a second!" Donald shouts. "You just don't trust my magic, do you!"

"Well no, not really." I truthfully answer.

"That's it, I'll show you how great my magic is!" Donald grabs his magic rod and a bright flash of light blinds me.

* * *

I blink away the dazzling lights in my eyes and gasp as I notice I'm underwater. Something weird about my legs makes me look down and gasp again as I find out that a fish tail has replaced my legs. "Whoa, I'm a merman." I say.

"More like a shark boy." Dan's voice comes from behind me.

I turn around and see Dan swimming over to me. He has a fish tail too, but it is more scaly and light blue. "What do you mean?" I ask him.

"Look, you have a dorsal fin." He grabs a fin on my back. "You are part shark. Or maybe you're part dolphin." Dan looks at me a little more before saying, "You're too nice to be a shark boy. I dub thee, 'Dolphin Boy.'

"So then what are you?" I ask him, a little annoyed by that name.

"I'm a merman." Dan says, showing off his finless back. He looks at his belly and says, "Well one good thing about this adventure is that I'm losing weight."

"It's about time too." Sam says as she comes from behind a rock wall. She's a mermaid too. She even has the clam shells to go with her tail.

"Wow Sam, that's less revealing than your usual swimsuit." Dan chuckles at his own joke.

"Shut up, do you realize how hard it was to find some stupid shells that fit?"

Donald and Goofy come from behind a giant oyster and swim to us. Donald has eight dark blue octopus legs and Goofy is a green turtle with the head of… well, Goofy. "So what now?" Donald asks. I can tell he's directing the question towards Dan and Sam.

"I don't know, how about searching around?" Dan suggests.

Thankfully, another mermaid swims around the corner of a rock passage. She is being followed by a yellow fish and a red crab. At seeing us, she stops out of caution, but after investigating us, swims up to us.

"Ariel, what are you doing?" The crab asks the girl. "Your father is going to be very mad about this."

"Oh come on, Sebastian." Ariel says. "Nothing bad will happen." She puts her attention back on us. "So who are you guys? I don't believe I've seen you around here before." She starts to swim around me and I turn to keep my eyes on her. "You seem kind of different." She adds.

"Uh, what do you mean?" I try to laugh it off. "We're from a different sea far away from here, yeah." I laugh some more. "We're not really used to these waters though." I add with some more laughter.

"Oh, well in that case, "She says while thinking, "Sebastian will help you." Thank goodness, she bought that.

"I can't believe she bought that." I hear Sam whisper to Dan. Gee, thanks.

"Oh alright." Sebastian says. "To help you swim, Flounder will swim around and you will try to swim after him." The yellow fish who must be Flounder swims to the other side of the giant oyster.

"I try to swim to him by swinging my arms but Sebastian stops me by saying, "No, no. Use your tail and leave your arms by your side."

I keep my arms at my side and try to swing my tail around but I don't move very proficiently. I then try to lash it back like a whip and I swim a little better. I eventually figure out how to move my tail effectively and I start to chase Flounder. It's not that bad, actually. It's like I'm moving two legs as one.

"Good," Sebastian says, "now let's move on to self defense." Several Heartless that look like jellyfish come from the rock tunnel at that moment.

"Sebastian!" Ariel shouts as she and Flounder swim to safety behind the giant oyster and Sebastian does the same.

"Now this is more like it." Dan says as he takes out his sword. "Kind of like Tidus but with a fish tail." He adds before swimming after the Heartless. Wait, he knows who Tidus is?

I shake the confusing off and grab the keyblade to join the fight. While fighting underwater is pretty weird, it feels pretty natural to me. I just swing the keyblade and the Heartless die. When all the Heartless disappear, Ariel, Flounder and Sebastian come out from hiding.

"Come on, Ariel. The land outside the palace is getting more dangerous every second." Sebastian pleads with her.

"Oh alright." She gives in. "I guess I'll see you again some other time." She tells us.

"What! No, these guys are great fighters. We need them." Ariel shows an annoyed face but asks us to escort them.

"Sure, why not?" I answer. Maybe she'll lead us to the keyhole.

"Great, we just need to follow the tridents." She points to the yellow tridents on the rock walls. It's almost as if the universe wants to make this easy by giving us arrows pointing to the destination.

* * *

"There's too many Heartless!" I shout as I continuously cast thunder everywhere. Thank God the water doesn't conduct the magic.

"Come on, we can escape into the palace." Ariel points to the multi-colored castle off in the distance. We swim as fast as we can into the castle. We swim around a corner and a blast of light goes by us and destroys all of the Heartless.

"Daddy!" Ariel says in gratitude.

"Ariel, what have I told you about leaving the palace?" King Triton sternly asks her. "You know how dangerous it is out there." Man, I'm glad he isn't my dad.

"But Daddy," Ariel says, "I was just helping them." She waves her hand towards us.

"Helping them with what?" Triton continues to use his stern voice.

She thinks about what to say, but can't think of anything so looks at us for help. "Well we are looking for a keyhole." Sora says.

"A keyhole!" Triton shouts.

"A keyhole, what's that?" Ariel asks.

"Never mind that!" Triton tells Ariel. "I don't want you leaving the palace again. And don't even think about finding any keyhole. It's probably dangerous."

"Daddy, you're just so, so…" Not being able to think of anything to call him, Ariel swims off instead.

"Better go after her." I mumble. No that I want to be with her more. I just don't like her dad.

We all swim outside and, thankfully, the Heartless are gone. We go out of reach of the corral reefs that are in front of the palace and see riel waiting for us.

"Come on, I want to show you my secret grotto." She tells us.

I pull Dan up to me and whisper, "She's really being affectionate. I think she likes one of you." Dan ignores me but I can see the look of disgust on his face.

We still end up following her to a big boulder that's against a rock wall. That doesn't seem out of place at all. I even roll my eyes as Ariel pulls the boulder out of the way, revealing a tunnel in the cliff.

We all swim through it and enter a grotto full of random junk. "This is my collection." Ariel tells us.

"Of what?" Sora asks as he examines an old oil lamp on one of the rock shelves.

"Of what falls from above." She points up to the water's surface. "I want to go up there some day and see other worlds. Do you feel the same way?" She asks Sora.

"Uh, yeah. I did." Sora answers, turning away from the oil lamp.

"You did?" Ariel asks, confused by his answer.

"I mean I still do." Sora corrects himself.

"She sounds like a kid that just wants to play show and tell." Dan says softly so I can only hear.

"Good news is she's taking a liking to Sora and not you." I joke.

"Shut up." He swims away from me.

"What's with that?" Donald points to a shiny crest holder that's missing a trident shaped object.

"Oh, that was there when I found this place." Ariel answers. "I've been trying to find the missing piece for a long time now."

I raise my fingers and say, "And in three, two, one-"

"Maybe we can help." Sora says.

"Here we go." I groan.

"Okay." Ariel shouts in glee. "Let's go look now." She instantly swims back to the entrance to the grotto.

"Sora, do you ever think about things first or do you always just agree to help people?" Dan asks.

"I don't need to think in order to help people." Sora says as he swims after Ariel.

"That's not what I meant." Dan tries to tell Sora but he keeps swimming away.

"Forget it." Donald tells Dan. "With him around, we'll have to thelp the whole universe with every little problem."

"He could at least ask for our opinion in the matter." I say.

"Who knows," Goofy says, "maybe we'll find the keyhole while searching."

"Guys, are you coming or not?" Sora's voice comes from outside.

"Yeah, yeah." I shout back. We head for Sora's voice and find him and Ariel back outside.

"So where do we search first?" Dan asks.

"Oh I don't know. I've just been all over looking for it." Ariel says.

"Okay, so where haven't you searched?" Dan persists.

"Well, I guess I haven't searched in the sunken ship."

"Great, where is that?" Sora asks her.

"It's this way. Follow me." She swims off in the direction of where we landed on the world.

* * *

"As you can see," Ariel tells us, "I haven't searched the ship because I can't get to the ship." The tunnel we need to go through has a strong current blocking us from entering.

"Then how do you know about it?" Dan asks.

"Seriously, it's almost like we're following a script." I add.

"There used to be another way but then this heavy object fell in the way and got stuck." Ariel tells us.

"So what do we do now?" Donald asks.

"We'll have to find a fast fish to give us a ride." Ariel answers. "Oh look, there's a fish over there." She points to a dolphin that is lazily drifting through the water.

"Uh, that's a mammal." Dan says.

"What's a mammal?" Ariel asks.

"Okay, time to take charge." I say. The sooner we get off this horrid world the better. I swim over to the dolphin and ask, "Hey, can you help us get to the sunken ship?"

The dolphin nods its head and swims over to the strong current. It then waits for us.

"Well come on already. Just grab onto him somewhere." Ariel tells us. We all grab onto the dolphin- I grab his waist right in front of his dorsal fin- then we hold on tightly as he blasts off into the strong current.

It feels like we're on a missile. The dolphin finally stops when we come out of the current. It's a good thing we're in water or my hair would just be ruined.

"Thank you." Sora says to the dolphin as it swims back with the current.

"The ship's this way." Ariel swims into the tunnel in front of us. We swim a few feet before entering a valley with a sunken ship right in the middle.

"Okay, let's search inside!" Sora calls. We swim down the wooden stairs- wow that's not something I think I would ever do- and search around the mostly barren room.

I say mostly barren because there are a bunch of barrels and a random chest. I look at the chest which is near the back windows. "Could it really be this easy?" I ask myself. I swim over, open the chest and roll my eyes as I lift out the trident head-shaped crystal.

I turn around and hold it up so everyone can see. "Guys, I found it-"

"Look out!" Dan pushes me out of the way as a huge shark breaks through the window and gnashes its teeth. Only its head fits into the ship so it swims back in anger.

"Holy shiz!" I shout. "I don't remember any huge-ass sharks eating people!"

"Maybe we need to watch the movie again." Dan tries to laugh.

"Wow, you just saved her life." Ariels ays. "Are you alright?"

"Well I'm a little traumatized but other than that…" I say.

"Huh?" Oh, right. But how are you, Dan?" Ouch. I don't know whether to feel upset by that or happy about Dan's embarrassing relationship.

"I'm fine, just peachy." Dan holds his arm behind him while saying this. I sea a puddle of red forming.

"Where'd Sora and the others go?" I ask, deciding to return Dan's favor.

"What?" Ariel looks around for them. "They must have gone after the shark." She instantly forgets us and swims outside.

"Thanks." He says as he brings his arm back forward. There's a tear on his back arm but luckily, there's no bone showing.

"You're going to kill yourself some day." I tell him as I take a hi-potion out of my pocket.

"Better than watching you die right in front of me." He winces as I rub the hi-potion on his wound. "Like hydrogen peroxide." He moans.

"We need to get out of here." I say once I see his wound heal over.

"I know." Dan says. "But it's not like we can just find a new home."

"What? No, we need to get out of here and help them fight that shark."

"Oh, right." He shakes his head and swims towards the hole that the shark made. "We better hurry or we might need to use a few mega-potions ."

I swim past him and back outside. "Or not." I ay as I see the shark swim as fast as it can away from the keyblade wielder.

"Oh good, you two are okay!" Sora says as he swims over to us. "After I saw the shark attack you, I instantly went outside to attack from behind."

"Yeah, we're fine." I say. "Let's just go back to Ariel's grotto already."

* * *

So a couple of Heartless attacks, shoving a chest out of the ground and a few mental breakdowns here and there (I won't say who's) later and we're finally back in the grotto.

"Here, you put it in." I shove the trident head into Sora's arms. "Your idea to put us in this mess to begin with."

"Okay, here it goes." Sora places it into the holder and we all stare at is as if something is going to happen. Nothing does.

"Well that was a great waste of time." I say. "Now how about we do something more productive-"

The trident explodes and we all jump… well if we could actually jump in water. "Ariel! I told you to stay in the palace!" King Triton lowers his trident which must have been what exploded our trident. That's way too many trident/tons in one sentence.

Ariel turns towards her dad with tears in her eyes. Or at least she would if she wasn't underwater. "Daddy, how could you?" She gasps before swimming away. Triton look at her with regret but then brings his anger on us with full force.

"I don't know what you're playing at but I want all of you to leave. Being adventurers, you must know not to meddle in the affairs of other worlds." Great, who doesn't know about itnerspace travel these days? "They keyblade bearer only brings destruction and ruin to the worlds he goes to."

"Gwarsh, that doesn't sound like Sora at all." Goofy says.

"Never the less," Triton continues, "You should forget about they keyhole and leave us be!" He swims back to his palace in victory.

"You heard him." I say. "Let's get out of here."

"We should at least tell Ariel goodbye." Sora says.

"Gah, why!" I moan. "We've done enough already!"

"Because she'll feel even worse if the last time she saw us was being confronted by her dad." Sora swims out before I can complain some more.

"Why that little brat! You should respect your elder's wishes!"

"We can't leave without him. Come on, Goofy." Donald and Goofy swim after him and Dan and I are forced to go with them.

* * *

"Wait, stop." Sora hushes us as he looks around the corner of a pillar to the palace. "There's a strange octopus woman holding the king's trident."

"Oh you've got to be kidding me." I say as I look too. I see Ariel holding her hands to her head.

"No Ursula, this isn't what I wanted!" She says. Note to self, never make a deal with a sea hag. Oh wait, I already knew that. Another thing to know is to never give Ursula a trident.

"But now it's time for your dream to come true." Ursula grabs Ariel. "You've always wanted to go to a new world, right? Well how about the dark world of the Heartless!"

Sora gets ready to charge but Dan stops him. "Just wait, we want to take her by surprise."

"They keyhole is not here." Flotsam says. Or maybe he's jetsam. Who cares, he's a stupid eel.

"What!" Ursula shouts in annoyance.

"Now!" Dan shouts and we all swim out from behind the pillars and charge for Ursula.

"Ah, they key bearer!" Ursula shrieks as we slam our weapons into her. She is pushed back a bit and shouts, "Fine, we'll take this outside." before fleeing.

Flotsam and Jetsam try to flee as well but Dan slices them in half with his sword. He's becoming a bit ruthless with that thing, plus we have sunk deeper into the animal cruelty level.

"Daddy!" Ariel says as she hugs the weakened king.

"You-you must take the trident back." Triton gasps.

"Don't worry, we have it under control." Sora tells him. Here we go again.

"I want to help too." Ariel swims over to us." It's my fault we've gotten into this mess."

I expect Triton to throw a fit but instead he nods his head and says, "Be careful."

"Come on, she's waiting for her defeat!" Donald quacks and we all swim for the outside.

Outside, Ursula is floating above one of the several coral structures. "Insolent fools," She shouts, "I'm the ruler of the seas now!"

Dark clouds of ink (maybe?) form underneath her and swallow her whole. The waters around us start to swirl so that we're stuck inside a whirl pool. "No turning back now!" Dan shouts.

"Not until Ursula is defeated!" Ariel agrees.

That's when Ursula's gigantic head rises out of the dark water. "Bow before the queen of all seas!" She cackles.

"We're dead." I say as I stare up at her. There's no ship to pierce her with down here.

"Charge!" Sora shouts. He, Donald, Goofy, Ariel and Dan swim after the giant Ursula as she waves her giant trident around. I continue to gape at the huge enemy but slap my face and join them.

"Get ready for this!" Ursula blows bubbles out of her mouth that hone in on us. That makes me feel better. Her attack is to just blow bubbles at us?

Sora dodges a bubble that then runs into Donald. He continues on to the witch's head and hit's a few combos into her forehead. Dan comes up to him and does the same thing. With the six of us, you've got to wonder how Ursula expects to win.

"Now you have made me mad!" She shouts at us. Are you serious? "I rule the seas!" She raises the trident and a lightning storm hits all of us with sizzling thunder spells.

"Is that all you've got?" I shout while being jittery from the spell.

Ursula takes a deep breath and a steady blast of lightning shoots out of her mouth as she spins around to hit us.

"Glad I asked." I swim upwards to get out of the way and towards Ursula's head. Dan joins me at attacking her forehead. A few hits in and Sora comes in with the finishing blow to the back of her head.

Ursula grabs onto her throat for some reason with both hands and begins to shring while falling into the darkness below.

"The trident!" Sora swims up to the now glimmering trident that shrunk back to normal size as well. He grabs it in both hands and it stops glimmering.

The water around us clears and the darkness below goes away. No Ursula can be found. She better be dead.

"Let's get back to the palace." Ariel says but when we head for it, Triton is already swimming for us.

"Ariel, thank goodness you're okay." He says. Don't worry, we're fine too.

"Well then, alls well that ends well." Dan randomly says.

"Yeah great, so can we go now?" I ask.

"But we still need to lock the keyhole." Sora complains.

"Yeah daddy, what about the keyhole, where is it?" Ariel asks Triton.

"Why Ariel, you should know. It's in your grotto." He answers. "The trident crystal you had was the trigger to summon the keyhole. That's why I destroyed it. But now I see that this keyblade is one of safety. Please use my trident and lock they keyhole."

"Uh, sure thing." Sora ays, clueless on most of what was said.

* * *

We swim up to the trident holder in the grotto and Sora lets go of the trident as it hovers in front of the thing. The usual shiny keyhole appears and Sora locks it as usual.

When all is done, Ariel asks, "SO you have to leave for other worlds?"

"Yeah, sorry about that." Sora says.

"Don't worry about it. If you can see them then maybe I can too someday. I want to see them all." Try to grow legs, then we'll see.

* * *

"How much longer to the next world?" I ask.

"What's the hurry? We just got done with one." Sam says.

"Actually, a planet is coming up on the screen. We'll be there in about a minute." Donald tells us from the pilot's seat.

"I hope it's as fun as the last world." Sora says excitedly.

"Don't be so pessimistic! This world will be way better than that tragedy of a world back there." Sam insists.

"I had fun back there." Sora mumbles.

"We're here!" Donald exclaims.

We walk over to the screen and I couldn't help but to grim. "Oh yea!" I fist pump. "Welcome to Halloween Town!"


	10. Chapter 10: A NotQuite Scary Nightmare

"This is Halloween! This is Halloween! Halloween, Halloween! Halloween, Halloween!" Dan and Sam continue to sing. Sam is wearing a short black skirt with a black tail with a point at the end coming out, a sleeveless black shirt, black high heeled boots and small black wings on her back.

Dan is wearing his same clothes but all torn up and red in areas. His skin is gray. He says that he's a zombie.

Donald is wrapped up with strips of cloth. Dan calls him a mummy. Goofy… I'm not really sure what he's wearing, but he has a screw on his nose.

I like my costume the best. It's similar to my usual clothing but black. I have a black wing too, but smaller than Sam's. Then there's the pumpkin mask on the upper side of my head.

"Will you two cut it out already!" Donald shouts at the singing duo.

"But there's still one more verse." Sam explains.

"Oh, well one more verse should be fine- I mean, no!"

"Gwarsh, won't those monsters in this world scare us?" Goofy nervously asks.

"We're disguised as monsters. If they scare us, we'll scare them right back."

Dan and Sam finish their song but still look giddy. We stop in front of the gate to the town and it slowly raises up for us.

"Heartless!" I wield the keyblade in defense but then hold it down by my side in confusion. The ghost-like Heartless just float there like they are anticipating something.

"What's wrong with them?" Donald walks up to one and waves his hand in its face. It doesn't move from its position.

"Maybe their power switch was turned off." Dan suggests.

The Heartless in front of Donald moves and he jumps back and shrieks. All the Heartless move in front of the fountain in the middle of the square and point their hands at it as a tall, lean skeleton rises out of the murky green water.

The skeleton makes a pose as he stands and another monster runs over while clapping. "Bravo, bravo!" This monster has a happy face but also a sad face on the back of his head. "Jack, this will be the best Halloween ever!"

The skeleton, who must be Jack, shakes his head in disappointment. "If only the Heartless would dance. I know, I'll go see the doctor!" Jack happily walks to a building on top of a bunch of stairs.

The other monster stands there, wondering what to do, but then says, "I'll go work on the decorations," and runs off.

"That was weird." Sam says.

"It would be cool if they can actually get the Heartless to dance, though." I say.

"I don't know. It seems pretty skeptical to me." Dan says.

"Well I say we go see if this doctor can actually do it." I walk to the building on the stairs and of course, they follow me. I put my head up to the door and easily here people talking inside.

"I know, the Heartless just need a heart. That will make them dance." A different voice from Jack's says this. Some kind of motor starts and then stops a few seconds after. "Now let's see. We first need a container." There is a pause before the voice continues. "What? It's locked!"

"Too bad, I guess we won't see the Heartless dance. Can we go now?" Donald grumbles.

"I believe you're forgetting something." I summon the Keyblade and give off a grin.

"Are you sure you really want to do this?" Dan asks me. "What happens might not go as planned."

"We won't know until we find out." And with that, I open the door and walk in. Jack and the doctor turn to me with surprised faces. Well at least Jack looks surprised. The doctor just looks agitated. The doctor is a small guy sitting on an electric wheelchair. That must have been making the motor sound.

"What are you doing in my lab? Get out!" The doctor growls at me.

"But I can help you." I point the Keyblade at the strange container on the table and a clicking sound comes from the huge keyhole on it.

"Fascinating, fascinating." Jack stares at the table. I can't tell if he's looking at the container or the Keyblade. "And you are?" He puts his focus on me.

"Sora." I happily say.

"Well Sora, how would you like to be in next Halloween's celebration?"

"Oh, can I be in it too!" Sam pleads from behind me.

"Don't forget me!" I haven't seen Dan this happy before.

"You can all be in it. But first we need to get this heart working." Jack looks back at the table and I'm surprised to see random objects on it.

The doctor points to each object. He points at a spider and says, "Fear," rubs his hands on glass to make a screeching sound and says, "Terror," points to a gulping frog and says, "Pulse," and finally points to two snakes that are eating the others' tail and says, "Hope and despair. All the things that make a heart." The doctor pulls a lever and electricity is shot into the table. Nothing happens as the electricity stops and he cries out, "It's a failure!" as Jack shows a depressing face.

The doctor unhinges the… top of his head off and scratches his brain… weird. "Hmm, maybe we need some memory." He puts his head back on and looks around. "Sally, Sally! Where is that awful girl. I never should have made her."

"Don't worry, Doctor, I'll go find her." Jack says. "Will you guys help me?"

"Sure thing." Sam answers before I can even say anything. She's taking my job of helping people!

"Great, lets go." We head out the door and down the stairs but are stopped by that two-faced mayor. The pale, sad face is on the front side of his body this time.

"Jack, Jack! Oh it's terrible. The Heartless have gone wild." The mayor says in such a dramatic way.

"Looks like I have a job to do." I say while summoning the Keyblade. Sam can't take this job from me.

"Don't worry, Mayor. We'll handle this." Jack leads our party to the town center where several Heartless are roaming around. Once they see us, they fly after us.

When they get close enough, I jump up and combo one. The other Heartless are attacked by a thunderstorm via Donald. Jack, Sam, Goofy and Dan finish off the stragglers.

"Is it just me," Sam says as she puts her pole away, "Or are the Heartless getting weaker?"

"We're just getting stronger." Dan answers.

"Oh great, so it is just me."

Jack whistles loudly and a flying ghost-dog comes up to him. "Zero, have you seen Sally?" Zero looks around as if he's sniffing her out before flying off. "Come on, after him."

We head into a graveyard which seems ironic to me since a bunch of us looks like we belong six feet under. Zero goes behind a gravestone and a patched up girl stands up from behind it.

"Sally." Jack walks up to her. "Do you have any memory?"

"Do you mean this?" She holds up a couple of small flowers. Jack takes them with a gleeful smile. As he turns around, Sally says, "Jack, I don't think this is a good idea. There's still time, you can come up with a different idea for Halloween."

"Don't worry, Sally, this Halloween will be the best yet. Once we get the Heartless to dance, it will be a breeze."

We head back to the lab where the doctor already has an idea of what else we should get. "We need some surprise." He says. "The mayor should have some. I heart he's somewhere in the graveyard."

"Agh, we were just there." Sam groans but we still head back there.

* * *

Back in the graveyard, I look around and find no mayor in sight. "He's not here." I tell Jack.

"Then we'll have to check somewhere else." Jack walks to a stone coffin and pushes the lid open.

As he is pushing, Dan asks, "What, is there a tunnel in there?"

"Sort of." The lid is pushed all the way off and we are all sucked into the coffin, just to be spat out of wooden doors right after.

I stumble but still land on my feet. "Wow, what a ride." Sam giggles.

"There's the mayor." Donald points to the mayor that's standing next to a row of gravestones.

"Excuse me, Mayor, but do you know where-" Jack begins.

"Watch the order that the ghosts come out of the graves. Touch the graves in the right order and something surprising might happen." The mayor says.

"Great, I love these games." Dan steps up and watches the graves. After a few seconds, ghosts start to pop out in different graves, one by one. After around ten ghosts come out and disappear, the ghosts stop coming.

Dan walks up to the different graves and touches then while occasionally mumbling, "Nor." or, "Not yet." Finally, he touches all of them and steps back. "There, that should do it."

We look around but nothing happens. The mayor, noticing our annoyed looks, says, "Well I did say something **might **happen." We all jump as an explosion goes off behind us. "Oh, wasn't that surprising?" The mayor says as Sam goes into a piece of a gigantic pumpkin that just blew up and picks up a jack in the box.

"Yeah, good enough to give my grandma a heart attack." She retorts.

"Excellent." Jack says. "Let's go back to the lab to finish that heart." He heads back to the wooden doors and waits for us to come before opening the door and being sucked in.

* * *

"Good, now let's see if this heart will work." The doctor says as he carries the fake heart back to the table.

"Umm, just wondering, but do you even know what a heart is?" Dan asks.

"Well I'm a doctor, aren't I?" He answers back bitterly.

"That would be a no." Sam says. Before the doctor could say anything, a little kid in a skeleton costume jumps in front of the doctor's wheelchair and trips him. The fake heart goes flying and is caught by a boy wearing a devil costume. The two boys and the girl in a witch costume that is with them run out the door before I can even tell them to stop.

"What was that all about?" I ask.

"Ah, those wretched little brats!" The doctor says as he pushes himself back onto the wheelchair. "Go after them and bring back that heart!" He orders us.

"They won't escape!" Jack says as we rush out the door. We run into the town center but the three kids are gone. Jack whistles and Zero flies over to him. "After those kids!" Zero obeys and flies off towards the graveyard.

"Only in Halloween Town does everything important happen in a graveyard." Dan comments as we follow zero.

In the graveyard, Zero flies over the tall fence and hovers over the three kids riding in a… bathtub. Weird, but what's weirder is that they are climbing up a hill that is stretching itself over a stonewall. Well maybe that isn't weirder.

"Follow me." Jack says as he heads to the stone coffin from before. We help him push the lid open and we are sucked in and spat out onto the different ground.

Before I can even recover, Jack is already running up to some wooden doors. He opens them and we are sucked and spat out next to the strange moving hill.

Several Heartless come out and fly or run up to us. "We don't have time for you!" Donald casts a thunder spell and obliterates the infestation.

Jack pulls on a really small tombstone and the hill moves to form a bridge over the stone wall again. We run across it and over to a new area with an actual stone bridge.

On the other side and through an iron gate is a mansion that architects would probably scream over how ugly and messed up it is. With several jutting pieces of buildings, wooden walkways everywhere, numerous doors to go through and a huge tree to hold it all, it makes me wonder how you don't get lost while walking from the kitchen to the living room-if the mansion even has those rooms.

The bathtub with the three kids can be seen on one of the many walkways. "I knew Oogie Boogie was behind this!" Jack states.

"Who?" I ask.

"The main villain." Dan tells me.

We continue on across the wooden bridge to the front door. I unlock it and we continue inside.

* * *

"Barrel, throw it down there already!" The witch nags to the skeleton.

The boy moans as he stops juggling the heart and throws it down a pipe that is protruding out of the wall.

"So when do you think those slow pokes will find us?" The kid in the devil costume laughs.

Just then, the door opens and Sam walks in while panting. "Ah, so many stupid stairs." She moans. She notices the three kids staring at her. "Aha, there you are!"

The rest of us come in panting as well. "Where's the heart?" Jack demands.

"You'll just have to ask Oogie." The skeleton says. The witch slaps him on the back of the head, telling him to shut up.

"Well you'll never get past us!" The witch gets into a fighting stance and the other two follow suit.

"But I can't hit kids." Sam says.

"You don't need to hit them, just give them a spanking." Dan tells her. The witch spins around as fast as a top and runs so fast that it looks like she's flying around us. The skeleton folds up into a ball and rolls around just as fast. I put my foot in front of the skeleton and he bounces over it and slams into a wall.

The devil boy jumps up and somehow spits fire at me. I cast a blizzard spell in his direction and he goes flying back. Donald and Goofy grab his arms so he can't do anything.

Dan and Sam are doing the same to the witch. Jack is looking concerned at the unconscious skeleton. Maybe I shouldn't have tripped him.

After making sure the boy is okay, Jack comes to the other two kids and asks in a demanding voice, "Where is Oogie."

"You'll never find him. No way can you find the green door." The devil boy says.

"Ah, why do I hang out with you two losers?" The witch groans.

"Might as well tell them to press that lever, huh?" Dan lets her slap her forehead when she realizes what she just said.

The skeleton boy starts to gain consciousness as I pull on the lever. "We shouldn't have followed Oogie's orders. This was all Barrel's idea." The witch says.

"Uh, what?" The skeleton boy moans. "But you were-"

"Yeah, you should be ashamed of yourself." The devil boy tells him.

"Can we get out of here yet?" Sam says. She lets go of the witch, who does nothing, and heads for the door. "I'm sick of these brats."

"Yeah, lets go find that green door." Donald and Goofy let go of their kid and follow Sam.

"You better win." The devil boy says as we leave. "Oogie will eat us if he finds out."

I close the door behind me and look around at the surroundings. "So now we need to find a green door in all of this?" Sam waves her hands at the immense mansion. "It was hard enough just to find those kids."

"Easy enough, we'll just split up." I say. "I'll take the top here and you guys go somewhere else and look."

Dan nods at me and says, "If you find the door, use Thunder to tell us your location." The others mutter their agreement.

"Then it's settled. Lets make it a race, then. Ready, set, go!" I don't look back to see if they are going as I run through the mansion.

* * *

"Green door!" I call out. I'm scraping my feet on the floor as I slowly walk around, panting. "Who'd have thought it would be this hard!" I trip on something- maybe air- and fall off the walkway.

Slam! I fall onto a large part of the tree trunk below. I moan as I get up. I look up to see the walkway way up in the sky. "Great, now I have to get back up there somehow!"

I start to walk up the limb but stop when I see a flash of green. I instantly summon my keyblade and cast thunder.

* * *

Sam, Dan, Donald, Goofy and Jack are sitting down exactly where Sora left them when they see the lightning spell off in the distance. "And here I thought he would give up and find us first." Donald says.

"Your acknowledging him too much. I thought he'd get completely lost." Sam replies.

"I thought he would find it." Goofy says.

"Yeah, well what do you know?" Donald mocks.

Jack stands up. "We should at least acknowledge him for finding the door."

"Or at least go to the location and get back the heart." Dan stands up and they all go in the direction of the spell.

* * *

"Took you guys long enough." I say as they all finally get here. "I thought you got lost."

"How ironic." Dan mumbles. "It's because Sam didn't want to jump down here. We had to find an elevator."

"Hey, it's natural to not want to jump off of a five story ledge!" Sam remarks.

"It doesn't matter. Oogie is right behind that door." Jack puts his hand on the green door. "Are you ready?"

"Of course." I say. "I've been ready for awhile." Jack opens the door and we all enter.

The room we enter looks like a casino. A giant game wheel is in the middle. A sack like monster is on the other side of all this.

"Oogie, give us back the heart!" Jack demands.

"You mean this?" Oogie takes the container and shoves it down his throat. "Now let's see if it worked. Oh Heartless!" Two flying Heartless appear next to him. "What, that's it?" He looks at the two Heartless and becomes enraged. "Nobody makes a fool out of me, nobody!"

Oogie throws glowing dice at us. They explode and we are sent flying into the wheel. The wheel lowers itself below the ground so we can't jump out.

Oogie says something- I can't really make it out- and throws three dice down at us. I hit them back as Sam asks, "Did he just say mahogany?"

"I think it was monopoly." Dan suggests.

"He obviously said blasphemy." Donald says.

"That sounded nothing like blasphemy." Goofy tells him.

"Guys! If you haven't noticed, we're under attack." I bat at the dice Oogie continuously throws down.

"Sorry, we aren't really counting him as a threat." Dan tells me.

"Make it up by telling me how to defeat him."

"Well go up there and… cut him open."

"Such great advice." I step back and my foot pushes a glowing button down. A fence goes up around Donald, Goofy and me.

The floor rises up to Oogie and we instantly jump off to attack. Oogie runs back in fright but Goofy tackles him to the ground. Donald casts a blizzard spell as Oogie tries to get back up. I slam him back down with the Keyblade.

"Dan, I can't cut him open!" I shout down to the three. While I'm shouting this, Oogie gets up and slams himself on the ground. An explosion knocks us back into the wheel.

"We just need something less dull, like my sword." Dan says. "Just help me get up there."

I nod as Oogie begins his continuous throwing of dice again. The dice randomly stops after a minute. "What is he doing now?" Sam asks.

She doesn't have to wait that long to find out. Three large blades fall onto the wheel and spin around while coming back up and down.

"What kind of casino is this!" Sam screams as she dives out of the way of a blade.

"The kind where you go all or nothing." Jack jumps over a low blade.

"That was a close shave." Dan says as he does the limbo to avoid a blade.

The blades stop and rise back up to the ceiling. The buttons on the floor begin to glow again. "Finally!" Dan steps on the closest button and a fence goes up around the two of us. But instead of us rising again, the wheel spins around and stops us in front of three life size toy gunmen.

The gunmen lower there pistols and aim at us. "That does not look good." Bullets are shot out and I feel my right side and left shoulder get pierced through.

"Cure!" I feel my skin form back up and pain ebb away.

Dan groans as he gets up. "Not quite the same as paintball."

"Next time, let me press the button." I tell him.

Oogie goes back to his usual routine of throwing dice at us. When it stops, I get ready for the blades to come back down. Instead, a whirring sound makes me turn around. A giant spiky top is gliding around the ring, banging into the walls.

"Don't worry, I'll stop it." Goofy runs in front of us and raises his shield in defense. The top rams into him but he pushes it back in retaliation.

"Way to go, Goofy!" I cheer.

"Yeah, way to go. Not it's coming from the other way!" Sam shouts as the top goes around to behind us.

Goofy runs up to it and blocks again. This time, the top stops and floats back up to the ceiling.

The buttons begin to glow again and I instantly go for the button in front of Oogie. The fences go up around all of us and we are lifted up to Oogie.

"Let's end this." Dan lashes out at Oogie and cuts a slash through his belly. Bugs and worms fall out as he tries to hold himself together.

"What? No, no!" The bugs cascade out of Oogie as he crumples up. All that's left is an empty sack.

"I guess the heart was a failure after all." Jack says sadly.

"Don't worry, we'll just have to think of an even better idea." Dan says cheerfully.

We walk out of the room and head back for town. As we cross the wooden boards to the cliff and on, the ground begins to violently shake.

"Earthquake!" Sam screams as we all run off of the bridge. The bridge collapses and I look back to gasp.

"He melded with the mansion." Dan says in disbelief.

"Look, there are a bunch of dark blobs on him-it-what ever." Donald points at several, well, dark blobs on the Oogie Mansion.

"I bet destroying those will destroy the mansion." Jack says.

"Great, lets split up." Sam suggests.

"Great idea, lets go." I say. We all run to the ledge but I stop as everyone else jumps off. "Suckers."

"You're telling me." I look over to see Sam sitting on the edge.

"What are you doing here?" I ask in annoyance.

"Do you take me as crazy?" I'm not jumping all the way down there."

"Well now this isn't as much fun." I fold my arms together and pout.

"Would popcorn help?" Sam grabs a popcorn bag out of her knapsack and casts a fire spell on the ground next to it.

I scoot over to her at the smell of the popcorn. "What else do you have in there/" I ask as she opens the bag.

"You will never know." She says mysteriously as she flicks a piece of popcorn at me.

"Well you don't have to be so stingy about it." I catch the piece before it hit's the ground and put it in my mouth.

Sam laughs as Dan gets tackled to the ground by a Heartless. "That's gotta hurt."

We stay quiet for the rest of the time, just chewing on the popcorn. Finally, the mansion starts to sway back and forth followed by crumbling to the ground.

I stand up when the ground below begins to glow. I summon the Keyblade and feel it raising my arm up to the moon in the sky. A beam emits from the blade and strikes the moon, causing it to rain glittery dust onto the large Keyhole below. A loud locking noise can be heard.

"Hey, what are you doing up there!" Donald yells up at us. Sam and I just laugh.

* * *

Dan comes on board the ship and sits in an open seat.

"So," Sam says, "What happened?"

"I sang 'This is Halloween' and he liked it. Said he could get the whole town to join in on it."

"Really? So if the move is right, then-"

"I suggest not opening Christmas presents this year." Dan smiles.

I look at them in confusion. "I sometimes wonder if you two are psychic."

"No, we just know our movies." Dan says.

"Time for lift off." Donald tells us.

"I wonder what the next world is." I say. "I bet we're so close to finding Riku and Kiari."


	11. Chapter 11: Faith, Trust and What?

Sam looks out the window at the endless space. She sighs and says, "How many more worlds will we have to visit before we… what are you doing again?"

"We're trying to find Riku, Kiari and the king." Sora tells her. "So I guess it could actually take forever."

Sam groans and slams her head against the window. "At least we know what we're doing." Dan says. "After this is all over, well, who knows what the future holds for us."

"Oh yeah, you two don't really have a home to go to." Goofy notices.

"They'll come with me to the islands, of course!" Sora looks around as if he's begging for someone to disagree.

"But your islands were destroyed by the Heartless." Dan takes the challenge."

"Oh yeah." Sora shows a pained look.

"We'll have all the time in the world-worlds to think about it once we're done." Sam says with her head still against the window.

"We've got quite awhile till we reach the next world." Donald says.

"Then what's that?" Sora points out of the front window at an object in the distance.

"Looks like a… ship." Donald squints at the object.

"Yeah, that is a ship. Looks like it's made of wood. I wonder who's on it."

The ship comes closer and a skull and crossbones can be seen on its flag. "That's a pirate ship!" Dan exclaims.

"Donald, get us out of here!" Sora shouts.

"Too late, it's about to ram us!" He shouts back. The pirate ship's side rams into the gummiship and the passengers slam into the walls and are knocked unconscious.

Sora groans as he rubs his head. "Can I please stop being knocked unconscious?" He stops as he notices that he is on the deck of the pirate ship.

Sora gets up and looks around to find nobody with him. "Guys? Where'd you go?""I didn't think you'd come, Sora." Riku's blatant voice causes Sora to turn around and look up to a higher part of the deck. "Good to see you again."

"Where are the others?" Sora didn't want to call them his friends in case Riku gets mad again.

"Are they that important to you? More important than old friends?" Sora sighs, seeing his tactic didn't work. Riku continues speaking. "Instead of worrying about them, you should be asking…" He steps aside and Sora gasps. "… about her."

"Kiari!" Kiari stays motionless, sitting in an upright position against a post.

"That's right." Riku smiles at his success. "While you were off goofing around, I finally found her."

Sora tries to run up to him, but a man with a hook for a hand blocks him. "not so fast. No shenanigans aboard my vessel, boy."

"Riku, why are you siding with the Heartless?"

"The Heartless obey me now, Sora. Now I have nothing to fear."

"You're stupid. Sooner or later they'll swallow your heart."

"Not a chance. My heart's too strong." Sora sighs again. This time at Riku's cockiness.

"Riku…" They stay silent for a few seconds as they stare at each other.

"I've picked up a few other tricks as well. Like this for instance." Riku holds his hand out in front of him. Sora jumps back in surprise as a Heartless that looks like him forms out of the ground. "You can go see your friends now." Yes, Sora's tactic definitely didn't work. A trap door opens from underneath and Sora is sent falling below.

"Let's get underway, already. And keep Sora away from Kiari until we're ready to land." Riku orders the hook-handed man.

The man grunts. "That scurvy brat thinks he can order me around."

"What shall we do, Captain Hook?" A smaller man next to Hook asks.

"Nothing. Just make sure Riku and Kiari make it to Hollow Bastion." James appears from behind the two.

"I still think we don't need those two." Hook folds his arms in annoyance.

"And Maleficent is starting to think we might not need you anymore." James smiles at Hook's reaction. "Don't worry, the Heartless should slow the kids down enough."

Hook opens his mouth to retaliate when his ears start to hear something. "Do you hear that dreadful sound? Am I imagining it?" He holds his head with his hands. "Oh, my poor nerves…"

James shakes his head but starts to walk away. "Wait, wait! Where are you going?" Hook asks.

"Don't mind me. I just have some unfinished business below. Riku has given me another idea."

"I can't believe it. She's here on this ship." Sora says jovially.

"Well that's great." Sam says. "That's two of the three people located."

"You should go introduce us to her." Goofy tells Sora.

"But before that," Dan says, "How about you guys-"

"Get off of me!" Donald shouts.

"Oh, right." Sora gets off of Sam and she gets off of Goofy, followed by Goofy getting off of Dan and Dan getting off of Donald. "You shouldn't have been under the trap door when I fell." Sora says to the flattened duck.

"Did you see James up there?" Dan asks.

Sora tries to remember all of what happened. "No, I don't think so."

"Well that's probably a good thing." Sam says. "He isn't himself at all."

"Hey, the door's locked." Goofy exclaims as he tries to push the door open.

"I can help." A kid in green tights, tunic and hat jumps out from behind some barrels.

"How long have you been there?" Sam asks. The boy ignores her and heads for the door.

"Tink, you there yet?" He speaks through the little window on the door. A golden, sparkly pixie flies through the window and stays in the air in front of the boy's face. "So did you find her?" The pixie makes a lot of movement while making jingling noises. "Huh? There's another girl with her?" Sora flinches at hearing that. "Well come on, open the door so we can go get her."

The pixie beings to jingle in annoyance. "Oh, she must be jealous." Donald laughs at the pixie. She flies up and punches him in the face in anger before flying back out the window.

"Tink, come back!" The tight-wearing boy shouts. He turns around to the others.

"So who can help?" Sora asks as he summons the keyblade.

"All right, fine." The boy says in annoyance. "The name's Peter." He puts his hand out.

"Sora." Sora tries to shake Peter's hand but Peter withdraws it.

"But just remember, the instant I find Wendy, I'm out of here."

"Deal." Sora unlocks the door and they all head out.

They find the next room to be completely infested with Heartless wearing colorful pirate costumes. "I'd call them cute if they weren't pointing those swords at me." Sam says before casting a thunder spell.

Sora blocks a powerful swing and pushes a Heartless back before setting it on fire. A Heartless comes up from behind him and smashes its sword into his back but he recovers and beings to fight it.

Peter flies off of the ground and attacks a Heartless with a flurry of jabs with his dagger. The Heartless disappears and Peter continues on to the next Heartless.

The Heartless are finally all destroyed and the group goes up-or in Peter's case, flies up- a ladder to some doors.

Only one of the doors is unlocked so they go in that one to find a hole in the ground.

"Is a ship supposed to have a hole in it?" Sam asks.

"Is a ship supposed to have a maze full of monsters/" Dan asks back. He jumps in the hole and is followed by the rest of them. Sam notices a ladder on the side of the hole and climbs down it.

The bottom of the ship is almost pitch black with the only light coming from the two exits. As soon as the group tries to head for the other ladder, Shadow Heartless appear from the ground and attack them. A quick thunder spell from Donald and Sam eradicates them.

They quickly climb up the other ladder into another room. As they continue to walk. Goofy stop and asks, "So, uh, how come you can fly?"

"Anyone can fly. You wanna try?" Peter asks. He whistles for Tink and she comes to him. "Ah, haven't you cooled off yet, Tink?" He grabs her and has her fly over the others. "Just a little bit of pixie dust. There. Now you can fly."

Donald tries to fly by flapping his wings but he falls face down. Tink and Sam laugh at him. "Well how about you try?" He demands of Sam.

She waves it off. "I'll pass. It's too crowded in here."

Noises coming from a wire mesh ceiling causes the group to look at it.

"Peter? Peter Pan?" A girl's voice says. A brunette wearing some kind of blue dress-or maybe a nightgown- comes over to the mesh.

"Wendy!" Peter looks up at his crush.

"Please hurry! The pirates are coming!" Wendy urges them.

"What! I'll be right up there! Just hold on!" Peter starts to fly away but Sora goes up to the mesh.

"Wendy?" He asks.

"Yes?" Wendy asks back, startled by seeing other people with Peter.

"Is there another girl in there with you?"

"Oh, why, yes. But she seems to be asleep." Wendy takes a closer look at the mysterious girl that was locked in the room with her. All she has done is sit in an awkward position and stare at the floor with her mouth opened a bit. "She hasn't budged an inch." Wendy adds.

Sora notices a part of Kairi's body over the mesh. "Kairi? Kairi!" He raises his hand towards her and stares with a worried face.

"I think there's something wrong with her." Sam whispers.

A twitch of Kairi's fingers makes Sora smile for a second but then a door bangs open and Wendy screams as she and Kairi are taken away. "Wendy!" Peter shouts. He looks at the others. "Hey, let's get up there!"

They search the room and find an opening to go up on the other side of the room. They climb up through the whole and enter a hallway.

Peter instantly goes for the door that Wendy and Kairi were behind to find it locked. "Sora, can you unlock it?" Dan asks.

Sora points the keyblade at the door but nothing happens. "Maybe something is blocking it. We'll have to find a different way in." Donald says.

They try to open another door to find it unlocked. Inside are a few hammocks with a door on the ceiling. A ladder to the door is strapped to the ceiling.

"Don't worry, I'll get it." Sora jumps on top of Goofy and tries to reach for the ladder. "Hold still." He tells Goofy as he fails to reach the ladder. "Donald, get up here."

"What!" Donald quacks. He looks a little nervous but he climbs up Goofy and Sora. He puts his legs around Sora's neck and tries to grab the ladder. Just as his hand wraps around the ladder, Goofy collapses under the weight, leaving Donald hanging.

"That is pathetic." Sam says as she watches Donald try to pull himself and the ladder down.

"I'd like to see you do better." Sora says in annoyance.

"Yeah. How about you come up here, then." Donald says, wanting to see her try to fly.

"Fine." She crouches as if she is going to jump up but then stands again and says, "Peter, lower the ladder."

"Okay." Peter flies up to the ladder and unlatches it. Donald falls off onto the ground.

"There you go." Sam says while looking smug.

"But you didn't- what ever." Sora climbs up the ladder. The rest of them follow.

The upstairs consisted of a desk and a chair, a bunch of cabinets, and an actual bed built into the wall. It must be the Captain's cabin.

About to walk through the door to the deck is Riku holding Kairi. Sora runs after him but a shadow appears on the floor. Out of it erupts a Heartless that looks like Sora but in shades of black.

Sora jumps back and equips his keyblade and so does the Shadow Sora. They both attack at the same time and hit each other's keyblade.

Riku smirks as Sora looks dumbfounded but then frowns as a Heartless version of Dan appears. "James." He growls as he leaves the room.

"Sora, switch with me." Dan says as he goes against the Shadow Sora. Sora obediently goes against Shadow Dan.

Shadow Sora goes in a stance just like regular Sora does and waits for Dan's move. Dan does a stab attack and Shadow Sora stops it.

"Ow!" Shadow Dan had just stabbed Sora in his side.

"Are you serious?" Dan asks as he and Shadow Dan both lower their swords.

Donald cures Sora and says, "It's copying your moves!"

"What kind of idiot made this?" Sam asks.

"I wonder." Dan says sarcastically. He backs away from Shadow Sora to see Shadow Dan back away from Sora.

"Just stand still and I'll kill it." Sam tells him.

"I've got a better idea." Dan walks around so that Shadow Dan is facing Shadow Sora.

Dan raises his sword and begins to strike at the air and Shadow Dan uses the same moves but towards Shadow Sora.

Shadow Sora blocks Shadow Dan's attack and whacks it in the gut. Shadow Dan doesn't budge at all.

"Nice try." Dan says as he has Shadow Dan copy a move to grab Shadow Sora's Keyblade as it swings at it. Shadow Dan then raises it's blade and plunges it into Shadow Sora's head, killing it.

Dan raises his hands. "Okay, now you can kill it."

"Now way! We can easily win any battle with this guy!" Sam says excitedly. Dan gives her an 'are-you-serious' look. "Fine." Sam sighs before clubbing Shadow Dan a few times in the head. When it is destroyed, she smacks the real Dan on the arm.

"Oops, wrong 'Dan'." She simply says before heading down a new floor opening.

"Your sister has problems." Donald says.

"Yeah, she does." Dan raps Donald on the head with his fist.

"Only I cam make fun of my sister." He says before leaving.

Inside the new room is an unconscious Wendy. Tink floats over Peter as he makes sure Wendy is all right. "Come on, Tink! Not now!" Peter shouts. Tink flies out o the room in anger.

"Well, this I as far as I can go. I've gotta help Wendy." He picks her up bridal style without saying anything else.

"What a ditcher." Donald grumbles. They exit the room the way they came and go through a different door to the deck.

Outside were a bunch of pirate Heartless, Smee and Captain Hook holding a lantern with Tinkerbell in it.

Sora shouts, "Where's Riku!"

"He left this ship to head for Hollow Bastion- where Maleficent resides. But you won't be going there. Unless you intend to leave your little pixie friend behind." Hook taps the lantern with his hook.

Sora hangs his head in despair and the Keyblade disappears.

"Hand over the Keyblade and I'll spare your lives. Be glad I'm merciful unlike the Heartless. So, which will it be? They Keyblade or the plank.

Knowing it is impossible for him to give up the Keyblade, Sora actually walks up to the plank hanging over the side of the ship.

"What an idiot!" Sora turns around to see Sam and Dan wielding their weapons. "Do you actually think walking the plank will do us any good!" Sam shouts.

"The boy there seems to be the smart one." Hook sneers. "Do you really think you can defeat me?"

"That's what they all say." Dan says as he and Sam fly up into the air.

Hook drops the lantern in surprise, allowing Tinkerbell to escape.

"Just believe, Sora." Peter says from under the plank. Sora closes his eyes and also begins to float above the ground.

Hook gets ready to attack when he hears a ticking sound. He looks overboard to see a crocodile hungrily staring at him. It's him! The crocodile that took me hand! He's after me other hand! I can't stay here!" Hook tries to run back to his cabin but Peter blocks him.

"You didn't think I'd leave you and Tink behind, did you?" Peter asks Sora and the others.

"Yeah." Dan, Sama and Donald all say.

"Blast you, Peter Pan!" Hook unsheathes his sword and begins to attack.

Peter blocks all of the swings of Hook's sword with his small dagger- as impossible as that might sound- as the Heartless break dormancy and attack.

Sora, Donald, Goofy, Dan and Sam fly over the pirate Heartless and their swords as two Heartless riding mini pirate ships fly above the deck.

Dan and Sam fly up to the two Heartless as Sora, Donald and Goofy go after Hook and the other Heartless. Dan hacks away at the mast of the Heartless until it breaks off but the ship continues to fly easily.

Sam goes for a different method of attacking the pilot of the ship. The Heartless gets mad and a blue aura appears around the ship while it charges into her.

The second ship decides to do the same thing but Dan flies out of the way and sends a fire spell at it.

Sam finishes off the first ship and joins Dan to take on the second one. While they are doing that, the others are still taking on Hook.

Hook's main attention is kept on Peter, giving the others more of a chance to attack. Even with that though, Hook quickly dodges a thrust from Sora and backs away so as not to get surrounded.

The only attacks getting through were Donald's magic attacks so Sora switches to throwing out spells as well.

Enraged, Hook does a flurry of attacks towards the direction of Sora and Donald, causing scratches all over them to appear. Donald cures the both of them as Sora tries to block some of the attacks.

A pirate ship Heartless suddenly rams into Hook as it flies by. Hook looks startled in the direction it came from to see Dan and Sam waving at them as they fly after the ship.

Sora quickly uses the distraction to hit Hook as hard as he can, pushing him up into the air and over the ship railing. A big splash announces the end of the fight. Dan and Sam finish off the Heartless just in time to see Hook swimming away from the crocodile.

"Let's see Phelps. beat him." Dan comments. Sam bursts out laughing.

The group continues to meander on the deck, waiting for Sora to snap out of his thoughts. Goof breaks the silence first. "Uh, Kairi couldn't wake up, so maybe she's really lost her-" Donald shushes him.

Finally, Sora lifts up his head and says, "I still can't believe it. I really flew. Wait 'till I tell Kairi. I wonder if she will believe me. Probably not.

"You can bring her to Neverland sometime. Then she can try it herself." Peter tells Sora.

"In the mean time, we should probably go actually get her." Sam says. Dan gives her a look that causes her to say, "What?" in response.

Tink flies around Peter, getting his attention. "What's that, Tink? What about the clock tower? You say there's something there?" Everyone follows as he flies away from the now abandoned ship.

When they reach the huge clock tower, everyone notices that only three of the four faces have the minute hand pointed at twelve. Sora decides to fix this by hitting the minute hand up to the twelve.

A keyhole reveals itself on the clock face and Sora seals it as usual. A gummi piece falls out of the keyhole and Dan flies down and catches it.

They all land in a hallway on the clock tower where Wendy is. 'Peter, are you really going back to Neverland?" Wendy asks.

"Afraid so. But we can see each other any time. As long as you don't forget about Neverland, that is." They both hold hands as he says this.

Donald starts to laugh at Tinkerbell's jealousy until she gives him a glare. She then flies around Peter and then flies around Sora.

"Oh boy. She's getting' steamed again." Peter says. "Do me a favor. Look after her for me, will ya?"

"What?" Sora asks, confused in how he suddenly got stuck with her.

"Well maybe she can help us." Sam says. "We can't just have dead weight with us." She looks around before saying, "Speaking of dead weight, where's Dan?"

A shout of joy makes her look to see Dan diving off the tower to fly back up before hitting the ground. "How childish." She says as the other join him.


	12. Chapter 12: A Subtle Climax?

"Hurry up, Donald!" Sora shouts. "We have to find this Hollow Bastion place."

"How can I hurry if I don't know where I'm going?" Donald argues.

"You always know where to go. How else did we get to all of the other worlds?"

Donald stays quiet at this. "Have we really been going throughout space without any kind of navigation?" Dan asks.

Further silence causes me to shout out in annoyance, "I can't believe we have no navigational systems In here! What have you been doing, following a random star that seems closer than the others?"

"Well it's worked so far!" Donald quacks. I give a frustrated sigh and sit back down in my seat.

Dan gets up and heads for the back. "Wake me up when we get there. I want to be ready for whatever happens."

"I think I will, too." I say while also getting up. At least I can't get even more annoyed if I'm asleep.

"There's only one bed." Dan informs me.

I'm going to grab a snack." I say, instantly changing my mind. I head downstairs to the kitchen. Yes, there is somehow a downstairs in this little ship. I'm surprised to find Goofy down here. Not sure why since I knew he wasn't in the cockpit.

"Oh, hey there, Sam." He greets me in a jovial tune.

"Hi." I say back as I rummage through the cabinets. I find some bread and peanut butter and decide to make a sandwich.

Trying not to be rude, I think up a conversation. "So what do you think of all that's happened?"

"Well gosh, I think that we're gonna be doin' someti'n' Important that will save a bunch of worlds. Our lookin' for our friends has led us to help out a lot of people."

"Okay." I say at a loss of words. I finish making my sandwich and just stand there, eating it.

"Are you scared?"

"Huh?" I look up at Goofy.

"Are you scared of what's to come?" Goofy asks.

"Of course not." I tell him. He continues to stare at me, as if he's drilling into my head with his eyes. "Okay, so maybe I'm kind of nervous about it, but any sane person would be." I gradually turn this into a ramble. "I mean, we could all easily die and then the Heartless could destroy the whole universe and then there would be no point to all of this and-" I stop myself with a big sigh.

"You need to trust yourself more." He gives me an encouraging smile. "I think we'll do just fine." I feel like saying some more but Sora runs down to us.

"Guys, we're almost to the next world! Get back up here!" He races back upstairs and we follow.

"See, I told you we'd get there." Donald says triumphantly when we get back to the cockpit. A world is closing in on us but is still a bit off in the distance.

"Are you sure, Donald? That there world looks pretty familiar." Goofy points out.

"Hey, why are we back at Traverse Town?" Dan asks as he walks into the room.

"That is Traverse Town!" Sora exclaims. "Donald, we're supposed to go to Hollow Bastion!"

"Well there must be a reason that we came here." Donald says.

"We might as well buy some supplies." I admit.

"Cid could install this gummi piece as well." Dan holds the gummi that he got from Neverland out.

"There you go. The sooner we do this, the sooner we'll get to Hollow Bastion." Donald lands the ship at the docking strip and we all get out.

"You three go find Cid" Dan says as he gives Sora the gummi piece. "We'll buy the supplies."

"Great, off to Walmart." I say as the three leave. "We have a lot of stuff to buy. Did you bring Donald's money?"

Dan grins as he shows me the money bag. "Excellent, we'll need some potions, ethers, elixirs if we can find any, granola bars, and bananas." I stop and think. "Do you really think those accessories that Cid likes will actually help us?"

"Who knows, but I hope we can bring the shopping cart all the way to the ship."

"Oh, it's you guys." Cid says at seeing us. "Where's that other boy and his annoying sister/"

"They went shopping for supplies. "I tell him. "We found another gummi piece."

"Really." He takes it from me and examines it. "I guess I'll Install it for you, then." He walks away, leaving us alone.

"Sora!" Donald yells at me.

"Now, just remember what Donald said to you: no frowning, no sad faces." Goofy says.

Their right, I'm not smiling. In fact, I'm doing the complete opposite. "How can you be so cheerful? There's still no sign of your king. Aren't you worried?"

"Aw, phooey." Donald says.

"The king told us to go out and find the key bearer, and we found you." Goofy states. "So as long as we stick together, it'll all work out okay. As I told Sam earlier, Ya just gotta believe in yourself, that's all."

"Just believe in yourself."

I feel light headed as I suddenly find myself floating over a big library. "Where am I?" I feel my lips moving but no sound escapes. A little girl walks up to an old lady at a table and the lady begins to speak.

"Long ago, people lived in peace, bathed in the warmth of light. Everyone loved the light. Then people began to fight over it. They wanted to keep it for themselves. And Darkness was born in their hearts.

The darkness spread, swallowing the light and many people's hearts. It covered everything and the world disappeared. But small fragments of light survived… in the hearts of children.

With these fragments of light, children rebuilt the lost world. It's the world we live in now. But the true light sleeps deep within the darkness. That's why the worlds are still scattered, divided from each other. But someday, a door to the inner most darkness will open. And the true light will return. So, listen, child. Even in the deepest darkness, there will always be a light to guide you.

Believe in the light, and the darkness will never defeat you. Your heart will shine with its power and push the darkness away. Do you understand, Kairi?"

"Kairi!" The lady disappears and the young Kairi looks around for her. I try to reach for her but she disappears too..

I open my eyes to find myself back in Traverse Town. "Huh?"

"What's the matter?" Goofy asks.

"Um, nothing." I say, then talking to myself, "Kairi… Did you call me?"

Cid comes back in tow with Dan and Sam. "It's all ready for you. Just be careful. Lots of danger where you're heading."

"Uh, okay." I say, confused by his words.

"Let's go. We're all ready." Sam says. "By the way, you might want this back." She hands Donald his money bag.

"What! Again!" Donald snatches it away from Sam, turns around to put it away and looks back at us. "Stop stealing from me!"

Back on the ship, Donald brings us back into space and then just sits there. "Now what?" Sora asks him.

"I still don't know where to go." He says back.

"What would you do without us?" I ask as Dan flips a switch next to Donald.

"We convinced Cid to install a map into the ship." A map appears on a screen. "It shows us all of the worlds we've visited and…" He zooms in on a location next to Neverland. "Where we need to go."

"That's great!" Sora exclaims.

"But it's so far away." Goofy notices.

"Which is why Cid also installed a warp drive function." I say. "Actually, he installed that with the first gummi piece without telling us."

"I wondered where this button came from." Donald says. He starts patting it fondly. "With this, we'll get there before you can say- oops." He accidentally presses it and the ship starts to vibrate.

"Seat belts!" I scream, but the ship blasts off and we're flung to the back of the ship. It takes about ten seconds for it to stop, flinging us back to the front.

"Please, don't ever do that again." I moan.

"You kidding? That was awesome!" Sora grins. "Let's do it again after we're done here."

"Where is 'here?'" Dan asks. He's looking at the world in front of us. The most prominent thing on it is a huge castle.

"It must be Hollow Bastion." I say.

"The Heartless stronghold?" Donald asks, a bit miffed by the shady world.

"Let's land." Sora says. Donald heads to the planet and lands at the bottom of a water fall.

We get out and I notice how strange this waterfall is. It's like we are surrounded by walls of water. I notice Dan go up to the water floor at the edge of the rock we are on and try to touch it. His hand doesn't go through the water.

"I wonder why… I feel this warmth inside, right here." Sora says as he has his hand on his chest.

"Aw, your just hungry." Donald tells him.

"Hungry?" I say, digging into my bag. "I've got granola bars, pretzels, jerky and a bunch of other stuff." I practically ram the open bag into his face.

"Uh, no, I don't think it's hunger." Sora pushes the bag away and jumps up to the floating rock path.

"I could use another granola bar." Goofy says.

"No, you just had one." I say while putting the bag back on my back.

A loud roar is heard from near the end of the floating rock path. Dan and Sora instantly head up there and I follow while asking, "Shouldn't we be heading away from the loud, scary noise?"

We reach a rock and stop at seeing Riku facing a huge monster thingy.

"No vessel, no help from the Heartless… So tell me, how'd you get here?" Riku asks the monster.

"I simply believed. Nothing more to it." The thing grunted. My eyes widen as I recognize that voice. "When our world fell into darkness, Belle was taken from me. I vowed I would find her again, no matter what the cost. I believed I would find her. So, here I am. She must be here. I will have her back!"

"Take her if you can." Riku calls. The monster jumps up to Riku to attack, but is sliced in the chest by Riku's sword, making him fall limp on the ground.

"Stop!" Sora shouts as we rush in between the two.

"So, you finally made it. About time. I've been waiting for you." Riku says to Sora. "We've always been rivals, haven't we? You've always pushed me as I've always pushed you."

"Riku." Sora mutters.

"But it all ends here. There can't be two keyblade masters." Wait, what!

"What are you talking about?" Sora asks for me.

"Let the Keyblade choose its true master." Riku flings out his hand and the Keyblade in Sora's hand suddenly starts to move towards it. Sora tries to hold on to it, but it disappears in a flash and reappears in Riku's hand. I'm not the only one that lets out a gasp.

"Maleficent was right." I hear Riku mutter. "You don't have what it takes to save Kairi. It's up to me. Only the Keyblade master can open the secret door… and change the world." He stares at the Keyblade in his hand the whole time while saying this.

"But that's impossible. How did this happen?" Sora asks in confusion. "I'm the one who fought my way here with the Keyblade!"

Riku swings the said Keyblade around and says, "You were just the delivery boy. Sorry, your part's over now. Here, go play hero with this." Riku throws a wooden sword that came out of nowhere at Sora's feet. Sora, in return, falls on his knees and stares at the ground.

"Shut up!" Dan draws his blade and gets ready to attack. "I don't care about what you say. Give it back to Sora."

"Are you sure you want to do that? The Keyblade is a pretty powerful weapon."

"I don't care. The Keyblade still doesn't belong to you." Seeing that Dan is serious about this, I grab my staff and also get ready to attack.

Before anyone could react, though, Donald and Goofy begin o walk to Riku.

"The king said to follow the key." Donald says apologetically.

"What, are you serious!" I shout at them. "After all we've done, you just go and…." Riku laughs at this and turns around to head to the castle up in the distance and the two follow. "You-you assholes!"

Sora stays kneeling on the ground with the wooden sword in front of him. The beast gets up and sluggishly limps towards the castle. Noticing this, Sora instantly gets up and stops the beast. "Hey, don't move, your hurt."

"Why… Why did you… you come here?" He groans. "I came to fight for Belle. And though I am on my own, I will fight. I won't leave without her. That's why I'm here."

Sora watches as the monster continues to limp away. He then looks back at the wooden sword and picks it up. "Me too. I'm not gonna give up now."

"We still have someone to save." Dan says. I wonder if he is talking about Kairi or someone else.

I cast a cure spell on all of us just to make sure we're ready. We then head for the castle. "Oh, what's your name?" Sora asks.

"Call me Beast."

"It's no good. The door must be locked." Dan says as he tries to open the huge entrance door.

"There not that much else to go to." Sora says while looking around. He's right, this castle is on a cliff and there's only a path up against the wall for us to follow.

"I say we backtrack. There was another path at the beginning." They follow me to said path and we go down it to a cage levitating above a drop off.

I back up a bit as the others inspect it. "Oh, did I say backtrack? I, uh, meant to say to stay exactly where we were."

Sora touches a blue, star-shaped statue and it sparks to a red color. The next thing I know, we are all suddenly in the cage as it falls and I scream.

Right before it hit's the ground, it miraculously stops. We are teleported to the ground and I fall onto the floor. "You really need to get over your fear of heights." Sora says. Beast grunts in agreement as he takes his hands off his ears.

I just groan while standing back up. I look around at our new surroundings. We're surrounded by blue walls of what I guess is rock with some more water covering the ground. Stalagmites (or are they tites?) are jutting out of the water and a passage through part of the castle was is underneath the water.

We walk up to the passage but find no way to go under the water. "Look." Beast says while pointing at a bubble above us.

"A bubble?" I ask. "What's that supposed to do?" Beast answers me by jumping in the bubble and flying through the water into the passage. "Oh," I say before jumping in myself.

The inside of the castle looks like some kind of worn out dungeon. We pass through a couple of corridors before being stopped by a strange looking wall. Did I say stopped? I meant slowed down since Beast rams through it.

We eventually find ourselves in another water-filled area. Barred walls are arranged in some kind of maze arrangement. Several blue buttons are scattered across the walls as well.

"A puzzle? It's almost as if this is some kind of video game." Dan muses.

"You're good at that kind of thing, right?" I ask him. "How about you go solve it, then." I push him forward and he scowls at me but continues on.

We stick with him as he presses random buttons and the walls move around us. He pauses halfway through to look around the room for a minute before continuing on. Finally, he presses a button and a way out appears.

"Took you long enough." I say while walking by him.

"Sorry for not having a strategy guide." He rolls his eyes at me. What a nerd. We continue on and end up at a dead end. On the wall leading to the end are a lot of mechanical contraptions and gears with another one of those buttons right in the middle of them.

Sora presses the button and the gears begin to turn. A loud noise is heard from above and then the gears stop. "That must have opened the door." Beast says.

"You know," Sora says. "It's kind of strange how this is supposed to be the Heartless stronghold yet we haven't seen a single Heart-" He stops as he feels the warm breathe of a Heartless that just appeared behind him. This Heartless is holding a shield with an animated dog face, which is where the breathing is coming from.

Sora instantly turns around and blocks the shield as it tries to bite him. He then tries to attack the Heartless, but the shield pushes him back on contact with the wooden sword.

I go around the shield and cast a fire spell at the Heartless' back but have to back up as it turns around and almost hits me.

Sora and Dan quickly put in a few attacks while it is looking at me and Beast finishes it off by ramming into it.

I almost say something about being surprised Sora's wooden sword didn't break, but decide I better not. Instead, I take notice of the Heartless' shield that is now laying in animatedly on the ground.

"What should we do with this?" I ask while holding it tentatively.

"Throw it away." Dan says. "It's not like we have anybody that uses a shield." Ouch, I mean, sure I called them assholes but...

I look at Sora to see him looking down at the ground. I fling the shield to the ground and push the three guys-which is saying something, seeing how big Beast is-forward. "Let's just go back up, then. Nothing to see here." I stop and they keep going.

Making sure no one is looking back, I sneak back to the shield and fit it in my bag. A little uncomfortable, but it will have to do.

After heading back to the horrid bird cage and me being pulled into it again to scream as we go up, we end up back next to the now-open front doors. Just before we step inside, two floating Heartless that look like wizards block our way.

"Get out of the way." Beast growls as he charges at one of the Heartless and completely obliterates it. I'm glad he's on our side.

The other Heartless summons a thunder storm of sort. Thunder magic flies everywhere and I get stung by a few. I try to hit the Heartless with my staff, but it is repelled out of my hand when I hit it.

The storm stops and Dan and Sora attack the Heartless as I run for my staff. Once I grab it, I run back to the Heartless and steal the finishing blow from the guys.

Once again, the Heartless drops its weapon, this time being a rod. I stop Dan from kicking it off the ledge nearby by pushing him and Sora to the open entrance. I turn around to find Beast holding the rod in front of me. I mouth a thanks and put it in my bag right next to the shield. I look in disgust at the broken crackers that are under the shield. I'll have to throw them away later.

The entrance hall of the castle looks completely off compared to the outside. Two stairs surround a fountain in the middle of the room with pillars surrounding the walls. Nothing mechanical looking is in sight.

As we enter, Beast looks back to the door to see Belle dressed in her trademark yellow dress staring at us. But wait, that can't be right.

"Beast, wait!" Dan yells as Belle turns into a Heartless. Beast ignores him and instead, charges up to the Heartless, the doors closing behind him.

"Quit while you can." Riku, Donald and Goofy stand in front of the fountain.

"No. Not without Kairi." Sora stands firm.

"The darkness will destroy you." A dark aura appears around Riku and his clothes change into a… umm…. What in the world is he wearing? He looks like an evil purple power ranger with no mask on, a Heartless symbol on his chest, and a white hula skirt around his waist.

Sora somehow ignores the strange clothes Riku changes into, maybe because his clothes are strange too. "You're wrong, Riku. The darkness may destroy my body, but it can't touch my heart. My heart will stay with my friends. It'll never die!" I really hope he's not talking about the organ-heart.

"Really… Well, we'll just have to see about that!" Riku throws his hand out and a dark blast comes out and surges towards Sora.

"Sora, move!" I shout at him. He stays frozen as the blast keeps coming. Suddenly, a shield gets in the way and the blast hits it.

"Sora ain't gonna go anywhere!" Goofy shouts.

"You'd betray your king?" Riku asks him.

"Not on your life. But I'm not gonna betray Sora, either, cause he's become one of my best buddies after all we've been through together!"

"Nice to know that I'm cared by him." Dan says angrily. I shove him a little to get him to shut up.

"See ya later, Donald." Goofy shouts to the other side of the room. "Could ya tell the king I'm really sorry?"

"Hold on, Goofy! We'll tell him together." Donald shouts back. He runs up to the two and looks at Sora. "Well, you know… All for one and one for all."

"I guess you're stuck with us, Sora." Goofy tells him.

"Thanks a lot… Donald, Goofy." I see Dan just glaring at them In disapproval. I wonder If that is exactly how Riku has been feeling this whole time.

"How will you fight without a weapon?" Riku asks Sora.

"Well you did give him that crappy wooden sword." I say to myself.

"I know now I don't need the Keyblade. I've got a better weapon. My heart."

"You're heart? What good will that weak little thing do for you?" Riku scoffs.

"Although my heart may be weak, it's not alone. It's grown with each new experience, and it's found a home with all the friends I've made." He looks at each one of us as he says that. "I've become a part of their heart just as they've become a part of mine. And if they think of me now and then… if they don't forget me… then our hearts will be one. I don't need a weapon." He says as he pulls out the wooden sword. "My friends are my power!"

The Keyblade disappears out of Riku's hand and takes place of the wooden sword. Once again, what! Riku takes his other sword and gets ready to attack.

Sora starts to run up to Riku, but Dan pushes him aside and leads the charge himself. Riku dashes to us and meets Dan halfway. Both of their weapons collide and they are sent backwards a bit.

I send a thunder spell at Riku as Donald sends fire. Sora comes in and hits him with a combo. Before Goofy can even get to him, Riku runs away.

He stops at the top of the stairs and looks around in rage. "James, where are you! You're supposed to help me!" He continues to run after shouting that.

"That's a good question." I mutter. We haven't actually seen him since we were in Monstro. My mind strays tot he weight on my back and I remember why I took those weapons.

"Hey, I've got something for you." I smile as I take out the rod and shield and show it to Donald and Goofy.

"Gwarsh, thanks." Goofy says as he takes the shield. "Kind a scary lookin', though."

"Where'd you get these from?" Donald asks as he examines the rod.

"You kept them?" Dan frowns at me. "I told you to leave them."

"Well unlike you, I actually try to be prepared." I snap back at him.

"And who's to say they won't leave again?" Donald and Goofy lower their heads at hearing this.

"Stop being such a jerk! They were only following their king's orders!" I feel like slapping him right now.

"Says the person who called them assholes." He's sent sprawling to the floor as I knock him a way with my staff. Yeah, that feeling got stronger.

I put my staff away and head towards Sora who Is talking to Beast when a thunder spell shocks me. I turn around to see Dan standing up with his hand pointed up to the sky.

"You've been asking for this for awhile now!" I grab my staff and run at Dan. He raises his sword and I almost stop. Does he plan on killing me/ I continue on any way and send a blizzard spell at him. He counters it with a fire spell and the magic creates some steam that I jump through and thrust at his side. The staff hits him but he catches himself from falling.

He rolls out of the way as I try to jump at him again. He starts to slash at me and I fidget, but as if realizing he was wielding a sword, he brings his foot around and kicks my legs to the ground.

I roll on the floor to avoid his inevitable axe kick and decide to try out a gravity spell on him. He is thrown down to the ground as a dark orb appears around him.

I'm about ready to strike him when some arms pull me back. "Let me go!" I shriek. I look back in anger at Donald and Goofy. Beast jumps in and holds Dan from moving.

Dan makes a mock laugh. "Can't you do anything right/ You can't even beat me up!"

"Shut up! I was the one winning. You always need help when fighting, or don't you remember what happened in the jungle?"

"I was out numbered and still ended up killing them all-"

"-And almost dying!" He glares at me for a few seconds before looking away.

"I don't need any of this."

I stomp on Donald's feet foot and he and Goofy let me go. "You're right, you don't need me." And with that, I run back out of the castle…


	13. Chapter 13: When the Going gets Tougher

-Dan-

I'm still in a bad mood as I examine all of the bookshelves. The library is another puzzle where we have to put the correct books in the correct shelves. I should easily be able to do this, but my anger is distracting me.

The others are trying to stay as much away from me as possible, which is perfectly fine with me. I notice Goofy trying to put a blue book next to some green books, and I take it from him, walking away without saying a word.

I head upstairs and place the book with other blue books. The bookshelf moves sideways, revealing a button, and I press it. The door on this floor unlocks and I whistle loudly before going in. I don't feel like using my voice.

I walk up to the rail of the balcony and look down to see the entrance to the castle. Noticing all of the candles on the wall, I cast fire on them to lite them. A platform in the middle of the room connected to the ceiling has a blue fire on it that extinguishes itself.

The others walk into the room as I try to find a way to get to the platform.

-Sam-

"So maybe I should have gone the other way" I say to myself. I look down at the seemingly bottomless gorge next to the railings, twirling the bracelet that Dan got me with my finger around my wrist; I give out a big sigh.

This is definitely the crappiest adventure I've been on, and that's saying something. Then again, what was the actual starting point of this adventure?

I look up at another balcony across from me, but then look back down at the abyss. "I can't possibly get over there!" I stomp my foot on the ground. A little green ball of light flies around me and I realize Tink was still with me. "Oh, Tink, I kind of forgot about you."

By the loud jingling noise, I would guess that she's annoyed by that, but she gets over it and starts to flap her arms like a bird and then points at me. "But I can't fly on this world," I tell her. I had already tried, and it didn't turn out well.

Tink slaps her forehead and then flies around me, shaking pixie dust everywhere. "I told you, I can't fly," I say in annoyance. Tink ignores that and flies back to my face. She makes motions like she's jumping and then flying away.

"You know what? Fine, I'll try flying again and you'll see for yourself that I can't." I jump up, but won't go any higher.

"See, I told you." I look down for Tinkerbelle, but she's below my feet, which are still above the ground. "I can float?" I look back down and notice the ground slowly getting closer. "No, I'm falling with style. How is that supposed to help?"

Tink once again slaps her forehead and then flies in front of me, waving her hand. "Oh, I say as I glide towards her. I eventually land back on the ground and head back to the railing.

"It still looks too high for me to reach." I think about giving up when Dan's voice pops up in my head. "You can't do anything right."

"Yu shut up!" I stand on top of the railing and Tink looks at me like I shouted at her. "I am getting over there and you will be proven wrong!" Tink now looks at me as if I'm insane, but gets up from the railing anyway to watch me.

Without looking down, I jump towards the balcony as hard as I can and glide over the chasm. I don't make it all the way and end up grabbing on to the ledge below the railing.

"Crap-crap-crap-crap-crap-crap," I repeat as I hold on for my life. I can feel Tink try to pull me up by one of my fingers. I think about trying to glide back to the first balcony when I hear footsteps above me. Great, what now, Dan got up here first, a Heartless ready to attack, Maleficent about to crush my hands with her staff? A hand pulls me up and I shudder. It's even worse.

"You should be more careful," James smirks at me.

-Sora-

"Dan, wait!" I shout, but Dan rushes through the opened door anyway.

"He simply needs time to think," Beast assures me.

"I can put him to sleep if you want," Donald suggests.

"Maybe he wouldn't be acting like this if we never left ya," Goofy sadly ponders.

"No, don't say that." I smile at them. "He's just in a foul mood from that fight with Sam." Sam, I wonder if she's okay right now.

"We need to go. There's still a lot of the castle left." Beast leads us towards where Dan went.

We run in to a room with an invisible wall blocking us from another drop off. We ignore the bird cage over the chasm and head for a doorway adjacent to us.

The doorway brings us to the outside of the castle. I can see the huge doors leading to the entrance hall below us. Some big, flying Heartless soar after us.

Just as one of them reaches us, Beast grabs it and throws it to the ground. I stop watching him tear it apart just in time to dodge a screw-attack from a different Heartless. Donald casts thunder on the Heartless and I attack it with the Keyblade until it is defeated. Goofy and Beast finish off the last one.

On the edge of the balcony is another bird caste. I touch the statue next to it and we're sucked in. The cage rises up to another balcony where Dan is fighting off some Red Nocturne.

Donald casts a blizzard spell on the Heartless and we run up to Dan. He tries to get onto a bigger bird cage, but we get close enough to be sucked in, too.

I walk straight up to Dan and slap him in the face. I've heard that makes people think straight. "Will you stop it already Get over it and stop acting like a jerk."

"How can you trust them?" Dan snaps at me. "They left you and you simply welcomed them back with open arms!"

"Everyone deserves a second chance. Just the fact that they came back should be a good enough reason to forgive them. We're a team." I put my arms around Donald and Goofy, who are showing mixed emotions. "You're part of this team, too, right?"

Dan closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "Maybe."

"That's good enough for me!" I take my arms off of Donald and Goofy and try to get to Dan, but several Heartless shows up.

"Let's get to work then… 'team,'" Dan says.

-Sam-

"You're not asking me any questions," James tells me.

"Way to state the obvious," I say back. We've been following a trail up through the castle. I'm not even being restrained.

"When people don't ask questions, it means that they already know the answers."

"Okay, fine. Why are you working with these Disney villains? I thought you hated everything that is Disney."

"Who told you that? It's true, I hate all these people, but who told you."

"I don't know. Maybe Dan said it at one point. Does it matter? And you still haven't answered my questions!"

"Interesting, very interesting. If you must know, I'm using the darkness and these simpletons for my big plan."

"You're big plan?" I raise an eyebrow.

"Yes." He stops and looks around. We're on a large balcony. Another balcony is above us, which is probably where this doorway in front of us leads to. "This should be good enough."

"For what?" James clearly has some issues.

"For when he rejects my offer."

-Dan-

It's a good thing my temper lowered enough by the time Sora caught up to me. Otherwise, I would have punched him down when he slapped me. But he's right; I need to get over it. Besides, without Donald and Goofy, we'd have no gummi ship.

While thinking this, I slash through a wizard and run up to the next Heartless. The five of us are too much for the Heartless and they soon are all destroyed.

I realize that there's another thing that I need to do. "We need to find Sam," I tell them.

"But she went the other way. For all we know, she could have gotten back to the ship," Donald responds.

"But-"

"She needs time to herself. She probably deserves it," Beast says.

"Yeah, I guess." The cage finally stops and we are let out onto a large balcony. We go down some stairs into a room with another lift.

"How much longer till we get to the end?" Goofy asks?

"This castle is very large," Beast admits.

"Maybe we should take a break?" I ask them.

Donald sits down after hearing the world 'break.' "Too bad Sam has all of the food."

"Come on, we can't take a break. We're almost there!" Sora pulls Donald up to his feet. Donald tries to protest, but Sora activates the lift, making us all go up to the next story.

"We have to rest at some point, Sora. If we use all of our energy getting through the castle, we won't be able to defeat whatever comes next." The lift takes us outside again as I'm saying this.

"But what if we get there too late and they're already gone?" The lift stops and I stare in surprise at Sam and James who are standing in the middle of the balcony.

When let out of the lift, I run at James, but he backs up behind Sam. He lets Sam run up to me and she says, "I'm sorry about before."

"We'll apologize later." I say before putting my attention back on James. "Are you here to fight?"

"Oh, I already know we will get to that, but first, I must ask you a question. Why are you here?" His question takes me by surprise.

"What do you mean? We're helping Sora."

"You already know our home no longer exists. Why continue to follow him to destruction?"

He waits for me to answer, but I remain silent. What is he trying to get out of this? Looking satisfied, he continues to speak, "Maybe you feel compelled to do good deeds. Do you believe in karma? Nonetheless, you should quit following those fools."

James reaches out his hand, still with a smirk on his face. "I have great plans for these worlds. Why don't you and Sam help me?"

"What-what happened to you?" I finally ask.

"I've found what true power is. Something even you were never capable of."

"Darkness is controlled by no one," Beast says.

James loses his calm. "Of course that's what a light dweller would say. You don't know how to control it."

"Says the guy who made a failed Heartless clone of Dan!" Sam blurts out.

"Who says I wanted for it to attack you? All this time, I've been watching you, setting you up to grow stronger; all of this for when you join me and help with my conquest. We were friends before you met those fools, right? So leave them and come back to me!"

"You're right, they are fools. But I'm part fool myself. Sam and I should be with those we're similar to, right?" I turn around to Donald and Goofy. "I'm sorry. I've been a huge jerk."

"You sure have," Sam butts in. "But remember, 'we'll apologize later.'"

"I guess it's time, then." James pulls two pistols out from behind him, one for each hand. "This is the part where I kick your ass."

Everyone draws their weapons, but I stop them. "You guys go ahead; Sam and I will take care of this."

Sora refuses with a "No way!"

"Don't you have some friends of your own to take care of?" Sam smiles at Sora. "Don't worry; we'll catch up with you later."

With a lot of indecision, Sora finally runs through the doorway next to us, the other following him.

"Please, Dan, you think to lowly of me. I've had over ten years to practice while you-" James stops and looks at both of us. "What have you been up to?"

"I probably wouldn't tell you if I even knew, myself," I tell him.

"A pity." He raises a pistol and fires at me.

A great force hits my chest and pushes me down as I hear Sam scream. I look down at my chest, but don't see any blood. I feel the area that got hit but find no wound. "What?"

I stand up while shaking a bit and watch Sam go on a frenzy. James continues to back away as he dodges or blocks with his guns every single attack from Sam. Finally, he raises a gun and shoots her as well. A dark blast of energy comes out and moves at Sam as fast as an actual bullet. She gets knocked down, but before James can shoot her again, I ram into his back, causing him to get knocked down.

James rolls over and sends several shots at me, making me fly back into the wall behind me. I land on my chest to get the air knocked out of it. This isn't good. This really is the part where he kicks our asses.

I crawl back onto my feet, taking deep breathes. Sam is continuously attacking James again to make sure he doesn't have a chance to shoot her. I send a gravity spell at him and it causes him to collapse onto the ground.

James points the guns at the both of us, but I roll out of the way and Sam swats his other hand away with her staff. Before I can strike him, he rolls back on to his feet and shoots at us.

"You're not using that sword of yours effectively," James taunts me. "If only you had a different weapon that you were better at with you."

"If only I had some earplugs so I can stop hearing the garbage coming out of your mouth," I say back. James just smiles before attacking again. Man, I bet Sora and the others are doing better than us at the moment.

-Sora-

"Guys, I think we should head back." I stop right at the exit to the room. We're in another room with lifts in the middle, but they are out of our reach.

"But Dan and Sam said to keep going," Goofy says.

"Knowing them, James is probably begging for them to stop," Donald adds.

I somewhat agree with them, but something keeps nagging at me, telling me to go back.

"Belle must just be up ahead," Beast continues on through the room. That's right, and Kairi has to be close, too.

We keep going, though I still want to go back. The next room is much darker than the room we came from, so my eyes have to adjust before I can see clearly.

The room is more of a hall with an open area at the end. Old stones cover the walls and ground. In the middle of the open area is that lady that I saw at Agrabah.

"I'm afraid you're too late. Any moment now, the final keyhole will be unsealed." Maleficent looks like she could jump from giddiness. "This world will be plunged into darkness. It is unstoppable."

I summon my Keyblade and get in a fighting stance. "We'll stop it! After coming this far, there's no way we're gonna let that happen!"

"You poor, simple fools. You think you can defeat me? Me, the mistress of all evil?"

Maleficent raises her staff in the air and the floor beneath her rises up into the air. Two of those Heartless with the shields show up as the rock floats away with Maleficent to the other side of the room.

I instantly jump on to her platform to attack her, but she sends me flying with a whack from her staff. She's much stronger than she looks.

Beast, Donald and Goofy stay focused on the two heartless, so I try a different tactic on Maleficent by attacking her platform. Noticing this, she casts a spell that makes a lightning storm appear above me. I try to dodge out of the way, but a few bolts still hit me.

"You seem to be missing a few of your followers," Maleficent cackles. "A pity those three won't see the second coming of darkness."

"They're stronger than you think!" I shout. "Wait, you knew James was just using you?"

"Using me? Please, I am the one using him. Give him a bit of darkness and he'll think he can control it all for himself. He gave me several of the princesses and he is even now helping me by unknowingly distracting the siblings. Once one of them defeats the other, I'll send Heartless over to finish the rest of the job." I gasp at her evil plan.

"So you're the one who made James like that." Goofy declares as he finishes off the second Heartless.

"We won't let you harm them anymore!" Donald casts gravity on the platform, sending it back to the ground and we all head in to attack her. She can't block all of our attacks, so I end up finishing her off by stabbing her in the chest.

She backs away in pain into a dark, green portal. "We have to go after her," I tell them. "This will never end until she's completely gone."

"It's not like we have anywhere else to go," Donald notes, looking around to find no doorways.

"Well then, we better get goin' before she sends those Heartless to Dan and Sam." Goofy leads us into the portal.

-Sam-

"Cure!" I shout to make me and Dan healed again. This fight is just way too intense for me. Only camping should be like that. Get it? Intense, in tents? Sorry, I should be focusing on this fight.

"Are you ready to join the dark side yet?" James mocks us. "Come on, we even have-"

"Seriously, you're going to say that?" Dan raises his eyebrow.

"Yes, we have cook-"

"Oh, just stop!" I shout. And surprisingly, he does. It looks like he suddenly turned into a statue.

Dan and I look at each other in disbelief before he says, "Grab his weapons."

I grab for his left gun, but jump back with a yelp. "It bit me!" I shout. I then smack it with my staff. I can feel the gun move with the staff, but it still looks like it's in the same place.

For good measure, I hit his hand and it acts similar to when I hit the gun.

"Magic is so strange," Dan says as I do the same to the right hand and gun.

After a few more seconds, the guns fly out of his hands as he looks at us in surprise. "How did you-"

He doesn't finish his question as I punch him in the face. We have more power than you in just one pinky finger." I'm not sure if that's true, but it just sounded good.

I then find myself blasted to the ground. Dan soon follows me as James laughs at us. I look back towards what hit me to find a Heartless melded to one of the guns pointing the other gun at me. So that's what bit me.

Dan trips James to the ground before getting up, himself. I get up to, saying, "Distract him," before heading after the Heartless.

The Heartless shoots more bullets at me, and I dodge them while thinking how awesome some kind of reflection spell would be right now. I persist through it, though, and club the Heartless at its chin.

The Heartless falls on its back and I use a thunder spell on it. A few more whacks from my staff causes the Heartless to fade away, leaving the two guns, now gray instead of black, on the ground.

I can hear James roaring in anger. I look back to see him and Dan a bloody mess. It looks like they were fist fighting. James launches himself at Dan, who grabs his sword and slashes at his legs. James ends up sprawled out on the floor, anger written all over his face.

"Do it, finish me!" He shouts. A dark aura appears around him. "I'll unleash all of this darkness and blow us all up!"

"What?" I shout

"You're insane!" Dan tries to grab James, but the dark aura stops him.

"You know what you must do, Dan," James smiles. It's your destiny!"

With that, Dan jumps at him and strikes.

"Dan!"


	14. Chapter 14: Sora's Lament

I quickly look away, not wanting to see this. I can't believe Dan would actually kill someone. My brother, the murderer; it just sounds horrible.

I hear him mutter, "cure." It's when I hear the sound of him dragging James on the ground that I finally turn around.

"How could you-"

"Are you going to help me or what?" He interrupts me, a smile on his face. "We need to get him out of here before any Heartless show up."

"What?" I look at James' body to see a lot of blood, but no cuts or bruises at all. "But I thought you- you…"

"I knocked him out with the hilt of my sword. Do you really think I would kill him?" He drops his smile and looks at me.

"Uh, well…" I quickly grab James' legs. "You're right; the Heartless could appear any second. Dan gives off a sigh, but ends up dropping the subject, thankfully.

When we head inside toward where everyone else went, I get an idea. "Hey, Tink!" I feel a tug on my backpack and Tink appears in front of me. "So that's where you've been hiding. Never mind, though, do you think you can help us carry this guy?"

She shrugs her shoulders but flies around him, anyway. James instantly becomes lighter, and when Dan lets go of him, he stays floating over the floor.

"How convenient," Dan says as he guides James over to the next doorway.

"All right, Tink. You go girl!" I give her a high finger, seeing as how her hand is really small. She goes back into the backpack and I continue on with Dan.

-Sora-

The portal brings us into a massive room in the shape of a circle. The walls all around us are full of huge dark thorns. Maleficent looks like she's about to fall over when Riku appears. He's wearing that strange outfit from before.

"Do you need some help?" He asks Maleficent.

"Riku!" I exclaim.

Donald notices the weapon in his hand. "Is that-"

"Yes, a Keyblade. But unlike yours, this Keyblade holds the power to unlock people's hearts. Allow me to demonstrate…" Riku stabs his Keyblade into Maleficent's heart. "Behold!"

"What-" Maleficent gasps.

"Now, open your heart, surrender it to darkness! Become darkness itself!" He pulls out the Keyblade and disappears.

"This is it!" Maleficent shouts. "This power! Darkness… The true darkness!" Darkness erupts out of her, and instead of a woman, a dragon stands before us.

It actually kind of reminds me of our battle against Cerberus, but I doubt this will end as easily as that one did. "Come on, I bet her head is a weak spot," I say, trying to encourage them.

Before I can even get to her, though, she breathes fire at us. The heat of the flames makes me back up against the wall. This just seems impossible. How do we defeat a dragon?

Donald casts blizzard on the flames to extinguish them. I run up to Maleficent, who tries to swat at me with her claws. Jumping over them, I proceed to attack her head. She roars loudly as I fall back to the ground. So I was right; her head is the soft spot.

Beast tries to tackle her, but she only budges a little bit. He instead throws Goofy up at Maleficent's head, where Goofy grabs on to her neck. He hits her several times before she finally gets him off of her.

After seeing that, an idea comes to me. "Beast," I shout, "Try to get all three of you up there." I get Donald and Goofy's attention and tell them what to do.

Beast grabs and throws Donald and then Goofy, and they both grab on to Maleficent's neck. Beast then jumps up on to her back and does the same.

The three's combined weight makes her head fall to the floor, giving me plenty of time to attack it. Donald casts some spells on her, and in no time, her dragon form begins to burn with a green flame.

We all get out of the way as the fire spreads to all the thorns surrounding us. When the fire fades, all that's left is a black smudge on the floor where Maleficent was.

Riku comes out of a portal and rubs his shoe into the smudge, making it disappear. "How ironic. She was just another puppet after all."

"What?" Donald shouts.

"The Heartless were using Maleficent from the beginning," Riku explains. " She failed to notice the darkness in her heart eating away at her. A fitting end for such a fool."

Riku disappears again and we head back outside.

When we appear in the room, a part of the wall to our left lights up and vanishes, leaving a new way out. I look behind us to see that the portal is now gone. When I turn back to the front, the doors on the opposite side of the room open up, letting in Dan, Sam and a floating, unconscious James.

I run up to them and ask, "What happened?" dan and James has all that blood stuff all over them.

"We won, duh," Sam says.

"I knocked him unconscious," Dan adds. "Let's hope he doesn't wake soon.

"Here, I'll put a sleep spell on him." Donald goes up to James and starts muttering said spell.

"But what are we gonna do with him? Goofy asks.

"I'm not adding any more people to our team," Donald says while still doing the spell.

"And I don't want to," Dan tells them. "He's full of darkness and… well he seems a bit insane. He tried to blow us all up when he knew he lost."

"Right now, we just have to get him off this world, "Sam says. "But first, don't we have something else to do?" She looks at me.

"Yeah, we've got to be near the end." I take the lead and head over to the now revealed exit. "We've already taken out Maleficent, so-"

"Whoa, you killed her? Nice," Dan says. "So did she turn into a dragon?"

"Yeah, how did you-" I stop myself at seeing his smirk. "Right, well maybe you should tell us these things sooner."

"How about this; Tink can make us glide, as you can see here." Sam points at James' floating body.

"I was wondering about that," I say as we stop at a huge pair of double doors. The doors slide open, revealing a big room with torches, carpet and a lot of other stuff that makes it look extremely important. It would take a while just for me to examine all the details.

It's the capsules full of the many princesses that get Beast's attention. He goes over to a capsule holding a girl wearing an intricate, yellow dress.

"Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Jasmine, Belle and Alice," Sam names them all. "Wait, why is Alice a princess?"

"And why are there only six princesses?" Dan adds.

"Maybe the seventh one is up there?" Goofy points to where two round staircases lead up to.

"Let's go," I say. That's gotta be where Kairi is, too.

That turns out to be right. When I get up there, I find Kairi lying on the floor. "Kairi!" I shout as I run up to her. I lift her head and shoulders up and try to wake her, but she remains lifeless. "Kairi! Kairi! Open your eyes!"

"It's no use." I look over to see Riku sitting above a large glowing Keyhole. "That girl has lost her heart. She cannot wake up."

I set Kairi down and look more closely at him. "What? You… You're not Riku."

"The Keyhole cannot be completed so long as the last princess of heart still sleeps." Not-Riku jumps off the Keyhole and gently falls to the ground.

"The princess…?" I look at Kairi. "Kairi's a princess?"

"Yes, and without her power, the Keyhole will remain incomplete. It is time she awakened."

"Whoever you are, let Riku go! Give him back his heart!"

"But first, you must give the princess back her heart." He swings his Keyblade towards me.

Immense pain forms in my chest and I fall to my knees. I hear Donald shout my name in worry. "What's-"

"Don't you see it yet? The princess's heart is responding." His footsteps grow louder as he walks up to me.

"It has been there all along. Kairi's heart rests within you!"

"Kairi… Kairi's inside of me?" Is this pain her heart trying to come out?

"I know all that there is to know."

"Tell me, who are you?"

"It is I, Ansem, the seeker of darkness." He comes closer and Donald charges at him. Where is everyone else? I hear Donald get knocked away as Ansem continues forward.

"So, I shall release you now, Princess. Complete the Keyhole with your power. Open the door, lead me into everlasting darkness!" Is this really the end? Maybe Riku was right and I was just the delivery boy; delivering Kairi to this madman…

"Sora!" The pain instantly goes away and I quickly summon my Key blade to block Ansem's. Kairi's voice continues to ring in my head.

"Forget it!" I shout out. "There's no way you're taking Kairi's heart!"

Even though this isn't Riku, I can see a resemblance in their fighting styles. He waits for me to make a first move, but I know what would happen if I were to attack him directly. Instead, I jump over him and slash at his back. He jumps away in surprise, but also in pain.

Ansem retaliates with a charging attack. I roll out of the way, but Ansem comes back at me with a jump attack. Lightning comes out of his weapon and widens his attack radius and shocking me. I quickly cast cure on myself as I run away.

I take a chance glance at the stairs to see Dan trying to attack the invisible barrier that must be blocking them. I also see Sam trying to shout at me, but no sound comes past the barrier. Even still, I'm reminded of the coliseum and how she had me fight Cloud.

Ansem does the charge attack again and I block it, giving me a perfect chance to retaliate with a combo. He obviously doesn't like this since he makes a blue aura go all around him. Instead of only attacking me directly, he also starts to throw large, blue discs at me. Just like his regular attacks, I can block them and actually have them rebound back at him. They end up coming too quickly, though, and I get hit by a few.

He is much too dangerous in this state for close attacks, so I keep away from him while giving some fire spells up. The lighting becomes extremely dark as the aura flares even more around Ansem. It's when he floats up in the air that I know a big attack is coming my way. Ansem points his Keyblade above him and then dashes into the wall. He teleports to the other side of the room and continues to fly forward, just barely missing me and continues to teleport. I Jump out of the way when he comes back around again. He finally stops and slams his blade into the ground, creating multiple spouts of magic on the ground.

I can't dodge quickly enough and get engulfed by a spout. It feels like I'm being electrocuted all over my body. It finally dies down and I quickly heal myself before having to dodge another attack from Ansem. His aura is gone, so I go back to close range fighting. He once again jumps at me, and I block him, giving me a chance to combo him.

With that final attack, Ansem drops his Keyblade and his body falls to the floor, vanishing. No, Riku's body is doing that! "Riku!"

"Sora! Sora, look!" The others make it up here.

"The… The Keyhole!" Goofy points at the glowing Keyhole which now has darkness coming out of it. I point my Keyblade at it, but nothing happens.

"The Keyhole isn't finished yet," Dan says.

"What can we do?" I ask.

"Maybe we've gotta go wake Kairi up," Goofy says.

"I think you're right. If we can free her heart, but how?" I look at the Keyblade that Ansem left. "A Keyblade that unlocks people's hearts… I wonder."

"Sora/" Everyone watches as I walk up to it.

"Whoa, wait. What do you think you're doing?" Sam asks.

I pick up the Keyblade.

"Sora, hold on!" Goofy shouts.

I look at James' unconscious body before turning to my friends.

"No, wait!" Donald pleads.

I give them the biggest smile I could muster.

"There's got to be another way!" Dan starts running after me.

With one big push, I stab my chest with the Keyblade.

The last thing I remember is seeing Kairi getting off the ground and running after me.

Good, she's okay…


	15. Chapter 15: Preparing for Battle

I can't believe he's gone, just like that. "Sora, are you really- No. It can't be! I won't let him go!" Kairi fights back tears in her eyes.

A man with long silver hair wearing a long coat and a Heartless insignia on his chest appears before us. "So, you have awakened at last, Princess," Says the man who must be Ansem. The Keyhole is now complete. You have served your purpose. But now it's over.

We ready our weapons, but I look at him in dismay. Without Sora's Keyblade and its power of light, how are we supposed to defeat such a powerfully dark person? I look over at the others. If only…

Ansem moves towards us, but steps back awkwardly. "Impossible."

"No, you won't use me for this!" An image of Riku appears before Ansem, blocking him off from us.

"Riku!" Kairi shouts.

"You've got to run! The Heartless are coming!" Right after he says that, dozens of Shadow Heartless come out of the ground. I'm at first skeptical on how dangerous just Shadows are, but then remember that only the Keyblade can actually defeat the Heartless.

"Time to go!" I shout to the others. They join me in my retreat.

"What about the Keyhole?" Goofy asks.

"Unless you're hiding a Keyblade in that hat, we can't do anything about it," Dan says.

We make it back to the Entrance Hall where I almost fall to the floor in exhaustion. Dan lets me lean on him as he says, "At least it's easier to go down than up."

"Don't make this end up like the last time we were both in this room." I instantly regret saying that, but Dan shrugs it off.

Goofy and Donald make it down to us, and Goofy shouts back up, "Kairi, hurry!"

Kairi appears above the fountain. "I can't leave them behind!"

"We can't stay here!" Donald shouts back to her. Kairi continues down the stairs with a Shadow following close behind.

"I'll take care of him!" Donald has his weapon out before anyone else. The Shadow comes next to us and just stands there. Donald whacks it on top of its head, shouting "Confounded Heartless! Get lost, will ya?" It takes the hit and continues to just stay there.

"I think it might be a dud," I comment. Then, more Shadows show up, putting our attention on them. We charge at them and quickly eliminate them, but when I look back, I see Kairi and the dud Heartless being swarmed.

When the Heartless jump at them, Kairi moves to hold the dud Heartless, then a bright light appears, destroying the Heartless and revealing Kairi hugging Sora.

"Sora!" We all shout. I go up to smack him for being such an idiot, but more Heartless show up. Beast shows up and rams into several Heartless, leaving a gap for us to go through.

"Go! Now!" I can't really complain with that, but apparently Sora can.

"Come with us!" He practically demands Beast.

"I told you before; I'm not leaving without Belle. Now, go! The Heartless are coming." I can tell that Sora is struggling with a decision. He usually is at these kinds of things.

"All right. Let's get out of here." We run for the door, but I notice Dan lagging behind.

"I'll stay here and help Beast," he says.

"Yeah, no you aren't." I grab for his arm and start to pull him to the door. "We already lost Sora earlier; I don't want to lose you, too."

"But-"

"She's right," Donald tells him. Finally, we agree about something. "We'll need all of us together to make some kind of plan of attack for when we come back.

Dan gives up and runs along with us now. Outside, Sora and Kairi are already waiting for us inside the gummi ship. We jump in and he takes off, Dan kicking the Heartless who jumped up with us off.

"Since when did you learn to fly this?" I ask Sora.

"It's surprisingly not that hard," he says as he puts his hands on the back of his head and smiles, only to quickly put them back on the wheel to move out of the way of a tower.

"Smooth," Kairi giggles.

* * *

"So the darkness is flowing out of the Keyhole…" Leon ponders all that we explained of the situation. After we got back to Traverse Town, Yuffie took us to the small house in the third district to talk to the whole gang.

"No wonder there are more and more Heartless everywhere," Aerith says. "The only way to stop them is-"

"Seal the Keyhole, right?" Sora finishes for her.

"Maybe, Leon says pessimistically. "But no one knows what will happen once it's sealed.""

"It should at least stop anymore darkness from getting out," I speculate.

"And we can't just stay here. I've got a friend back there," Sora agrees. I'm glad that friend isn't Dan. What was he thinking?

"That's right," Leon says. "You have one more friend to worry about. Riku's Keyblade must have been born of the captive princesses' hearts- just like that Keyhole you saw." He looks at Kairi. "Of course, without Kairi's heart, it remained incomplete. Once that Keyblade was destroyed, the princesses' hearts should have been freed. Don't worry, Sora. If anyone can save your friend, you can."

We leave the house to go find Cid. Sora suggested that he'd know if we could fly back to Hollow Bastion or not. When we get to Cid, Sora goes up to him and gets straight to the point. "Cid, I need to go back to Hollow Bastion."

"I don't think I can let you do that, kid," Cid replies. "The Heartless there are multiplying by the minute. They'd eat your ship up." He looks at me and Dan. "On second thought…" I give him a glare and he backs down.

"Then what can we do?" Sora asks Cid. Thank you, Sora, for completely ignoring his blatant hatred towards me.

"Simple. Go around 'em instead of through. Install a new navigation gummi and take a new route."

"A new gummi? From where?"

"The secret waterway. When I came here nine years ago, I stored it there in case I ever needed it. Never thought a kid would be the one to use it!" That reminds me, have I ever told Cid my actual age?

As we head for the waterway, Dan finally says something. "So how many more coincidences are going to occur before this is all over?"

"So you noticed that, too?" Kairi asks. "It felt like someone was just guiding you through all of this."

"Wait, how do you know what happened?" Donald asks.

"Well I was with you guys the whole time," She replies back.

"Yeah, I guess you were," I say. I wonder if she could feel what Sora was feeling while she was inside him.

We get to the entrance of the not-so-secret-anymore waterway and everyone gets into the water except for me and Kairi, who I hold back. I don't want for her to ruin her clothing. I get Tink to shower pixie dust on us and we glide over the water to where dry land is.

"Gee, thanks for helping us stay dry," Donald says in annoyance.

"You're so very welcome." I pat him on his head. If he was a dog, I'm pretty sure he would have bitten my hand

"Say, doesn't that mural look different?" Goofy points to a dead end tunnel that has a mural of a sun on it.

"I wonder." Sora walks towards it. Thankfully, the water is only knee high. When he gets close enough to touch the wall, the sun shines brightly and the gummi piece Cid needs falls out of it. When the light fades, the sun mural is replaced with the usual moon one.

When he gets back to us, I look at the gummi piece in his hand. It looks just like any other piece I've seen. Who knows how Cid differentiates between them.

"Let's head to Merlin's before going to Cid," Sora tells us.

"Merlin?" Dan and I ask at the same time.

"Oh yeah, you never met him," Sora realizes. "He's a wizard I met when you guys went clothes shopping."

"Huh, maybe he's the Merlin from 'The Sword in the Stone,'" I think out loud.

"That'd be cool," Dan says. "Where's he at?"

"Right up there." Sora points towards a staircase next to us.

"Are you saying we could have gotten here without going through that yucky water?!" I exclaim.

"Well it was faster that way…"

"I don't see any water on you. Stop complaining." Dan ends the argument by starting up the stairs.

I begrudgingly follow only to stop when I hear Sora say, "We'll meet you guys up there." Sounds like the two lovers are going to have a moment alone, or at least they think they will.

I watch as the two just stare at the mural, and then hide myself behind the wall with the staircase. "A light at the end of the tunnel…" Kairi says.

"Oh, your grandma's story, right?" Kairi sounds surprised by what Sora says.

"That's right. We were together.

"You know what's funny? I looked everywhere for you, but you were with me all along. Finally, we're together, Kairi. Now it's time to get Riku back."

"You think it will ever be the same again between us? Riku's lost his…" Kairi couldn't finish her thought.

"When I turned into a Heartless, you saved me, remember?" I'm getting excited about this. I kind of want to know how it's like to be a Heartless. Before he continues, though, I'm whipped around to find Dan's angry face glaring at me.

I follow him up the stairs in disappointment. At the top of the stairs is what looks like a piece of the ceiling floating in midair. He gets on it and I follow suite, then the ceiling rises up, pushing us up to Merlin's house.

"Can't you let them have their alone time?!" Dan shouts at me.

I'm a gossiper; what do you expect?" I brush him off.

"For you to bot be a gossiper." Wow, what a great rebuttal.

"Sam, it's nice of you to make it," Merlin says, bringing my attention to him. He really was the merlin from "The Sword in the Stone."

"Yes, it's good to see you," I tell him. "Well actually, it's bad to see you, cuz that means I'm here and not in my much less dangerous old life, but in the circumstances of this new life I'm having, it's good to see you."

I get a lot of odd stares from everyone around me. Thankfully, Sora and Kairi make their way up to release me from the awkwardness.

"So are we ready to go?" Dan asks Sora.

"Not yet." He walks up to a toy-sized carriage, which turns into the fairy godmother from "Sleeping Beauty." I was not expecting that.

"Oh dear." She gives a sad look at a bunch of rocks in Sora's hand. "You've collected a large amount of friends there."  
"Can you help them?" I have no idea what they are talking about. Sora found some pet rocks and now wants them to be "helped?"

"Of course, you'll be able to summon them just like the other one you brought me." She whips out her wand, rolls up her sleeves, and says her trade mark words, "Bibbidy bobbidy boo."

Each rock becomes more translucent, revealing objects inside of them. "We should split them up." Sora hands Dan a dark red stone, Goofy a blue stone, Donald a greenstone, and keeps the brownish-red one to himself.

After seeing that there are only four rocks, I ask, "Hey, what about me?"

"You have Tinkerbell," Sora answers back.

"So? Does she look like a stone to you?" Hearing us talking about her, she comes out of my pocket and starts to fly around.

"It's almost like your own version of Navi, but without a voice," Dan says, maybe to himself more than me. I have no idea what a Navi is.

"Well, these stones have people we can summon to help us," Sora says in a somewhat confused manner. It seems he doesn't know what a Navi is, either. "Tink pretty much is like your own summon."

"Fine, though I wish she was a stone. It would be easier to carry her." Tink flies into the back of my head. "Ow, well you definitely feel like a stone." She gives me a glare and I exchange it with my own.

I hear Kairi giggling at us. "And what's so funny to you? You don't have a stone, either."

"That's because I'm not going," she says.

"Oh." So that must have been what they were discussing down there after I left.

"I guess we can leave now," Sora tell us. "Thanks for all your help." Merlin and the fairy godmother nod their heads in thanks.

"You're always welcome back if you need any magic training; any of you." Merlin looks towards me and Dan when saying the last part.

"Thanks," I say. "We'll keep that in mind."

We leave the house where we eventually get to the third district. We say our goodbyes to Kairi, who goes back to the group's house, and then head back to the first district to see Cid.

"You found it/" Cid asks as we walk up to him. Sora gives the gummi to him in response. "All right, I'll fix your ship."

Our group stayed silent most of the time. Everyone seemed to be in deep thought about something or other. I can't blame them. It seems like we're coming close to the end of our adventure, yet it feels like it will never truly end. I also don't really know when it began.

Cid comes back and tells us, "All set! You can get going any time. Kid, I gotta say, I wish you didn't have to face all this danger." Wow, Cid's showing his soft spot for spiky-haired, fourteen year-olds. I also just realized how cliché this is. Why does the fourteen year old who's probably a freshman in high school always become the main protagonist with special powers?

"Don't worry, we'll be okay," Sora says, snapping me out of my train of thought.

"Better be; many worlds are counting on you."

* * *

"Holy- what's going on?!" I shout as I wobbly run up to the cockpit. I was stocking my backpack full of food when the ship started to move erratically.

"We're being attacked by Heartless ships!" Donald shouts as he continues to evade projectiles from several ships.

"The Heartless have ships? How is that even possible?" Dan comes up from behind me and looks at the havoc outside.

"This must have been what Cid was talking about," Sora comes up as well. "Can we fight back?"

"Well I'm trying, but the weapon system hasn't been used in a while," Goofy says as he looks at a computer screen. "It's taking a while to boot up."

The ship gets hit by a blast and Sora, Dan and I are knocked down on to the floor. "Shield's at seventy-five percent!" Donald shrieks. "Can't the weapon system boot faster?"

"Why are we suddenly in a Star Trek scene?" Dan moans as he gets up.

"You don't even watch Star Trek!" I shout as I also get up.

"That hasn't stopped me from beating people at Star Trek trivia!" Ugh, he's such a nerd!

"It's booted!" Goofy exclaims as he takes a joystick and moves it around. He presses a button and we watch outside as a ship gets hit by two little lasers from us. It looks like it barely made a dent.

"That's pathetic," Sora moans as he holds his head.

"Looks like we need to update the system," Goofy comments.

"No time for that!" Dan pushes Goofy out of the seat and takes hold of the joystick. As a second thought, he looks at Goofy, who's getting up off the floor, and says, "sorry."

Dan mashes the firing button with his finger while rapidly moving the joystick around. It looks like he belongs more in an arcade than a space battle. What am I thinking? I hope he never looks like he belongs in a space battle.

We all watch as the many ships in front of us are slowly blown up by the many lasers coming out of our ship. I sigh in relief when the world finally appears in front of us. Dan also sighs as he leans back in his char. "That was intense."


End file.
